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Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

cnn.com

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Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#131

Post by johngalt »

caycep wrote: post #73

One question in my mind is: what would it take for the old "engineer" faction of Boeing to come to the top again? Or is this unrealistic as the "management/costcutting" faction is just inherently better a "management" politics to ever be dislodged? Failing this, what is the likelihood a competitor with old-school Boeing values might emerge to compete, in such a capital-heavy industry?

A miracle. Bringing focus and engineering discipline back to a large company that has atrophied is difficult bordering on impossible. A change like that would be an uphill battle the entire time. Fighting against all the careerist empire builders. It's easier to start over with a new company than it is to fix an existing one.

There are a few instances of a true turnaround from a company that has lost the plot, but even in those instances it looks like jettisoning large portions of an organization and re-growing it along a new axis.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#132

Post by vb6sp6 »

totalZero wrote: post #91
caycep wrote: post #73

One question in my mind is: what would it take for the old "engineer" faction of Boeing to come to the top again? Or is this unrealistic as the "management/costcutting" faction is just inherently better a "management" politics to ever be dislodged? Failing this, what is the likelihood a competitor with old-school Boeing values might emerge to compete, in such a capital-heavy industry?

It's basically impossible for a competitor with "old school" values to emerge. The regulatory hurdles and foreign competition are daunting. There are only two companies in the world that can do what Airbus and Boeing do.

elon has entered the chat

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#133

Post by phkahler »

cameldrv wrote: post #125
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

According to the article Boeing has halted production, but this leaves the door open to producing them again in the future after design updates. I predict they'll try to rename the model and fly it again after making changes and certifying. That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

The 737NG is out of production, and Airbus currently has something like a 5 year backlog of A320 orders. The only other direct competitor is the Comac C919. Boeing has already made about 1000 737MAXes. The 737MAX is going to be a significant part of the global airline fleet whether you like it or not. There will be many routes where the 737MAX is the only aircraft flying that route. I think it's fairly unlikely that…

MCAS is not the fundamental problem. The new CEO has said they may require training for this 737 variant after all. Given a failure to simply drop MCAS, do extra pilot training and move on, we can conclude the plane isn't safe without additional computer control - of the quality MCAS was not. I hope I'm wrong about that, but the longer it drags on the more it looks like that may be the case.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#134

Post by smolder »

linsomniac wrote: post #31
heavymark wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I imagine the rebranding will be as ineffective as Comcast rebranding as Xfinity, where everyone knows they are the same.

I don't know what you're talking about, Comcast has had amazing support the last few months in my area. We even had a rep come to our house, and leave a handwritten note on the door when we didn't answer, asking if we had any questions or concerns and to give them a call if there was anything they could do for us. ... I'm sure this has nothing to do with the city fiber to the home buildout that is going on in our nei…

It took 4 of Comcasts contractor technician visits to my house to fix a bad coax running to the building. The first tech identified the problem and said another would come to fix it, and no one did. The next two were completely useless beyond checking that the modem connected, and wasting my time.

Aside from that my 300Mbps service frequently tops out at 30Mbps, seemingly whenever I want to download something large. The upstream bandwidth they offer is also abysmal.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#135

Post by favorited »

internet_user wrote: post #129
totalZero wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically impossible for a competitor with "old school" values to emerge. The regulatory hurdles and foreign competition are daunting. There are only two companies in the world that can do what Airbus and Boeing do.

What are the two other companies? Lockheed and Tupolev?

They didn't say "two other," just "two."

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#136

Post by missosoup »

JaRail wrote: post #127
missosoup wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as. Yeah you will. Good luck selectively avoiding the most popular international route plane. Historically, people have been very quick to forget mishaps with particular airframes and revert to flying the most convenient/economical routes. And by the time it's flying again, it will be hands down the safest plane that's being opera…

You can check it all you want. That won't change the physics of its dynamically unstable design.

The max 8 doesn't have an inherently unstable design. This meme now only lives in the minds of the most ignorant out-of-the-loop individuals who wilfully consume FUD and ignore expert evidence.

If the airframe is truly unsafe, then it'll never fly again. But everyone knows it will. Because it isn't.

The only thing that'll happen is the max 8 will probably require a new type rating which will hurt airline economy a bit. Other than that, you'll be flying in it a year from now and have forgotten all about this.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#137

Post by paulmd »

nickserv wrote: post #67
paulmd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly doubt the overwhelming majority of consumers are going to cross reference booking details against an external site to avoid a specific plane unless there are planes falling out of the air on a daily basis. People may say they will, but in practice they'll look up the cheapest flight and book that, as usual.

Depends on how prominently the information is displayed, and the price difference. If I can see the plane type in the list of available flights, and the difference is $15 on a $250 ticket I would choose the non Max flight, all else being equal.

Fair, and someone mentioned that Kayak does display that, but I think you will probably have to move to a different airline to get a different aircraft type (airlines use one common type for most flights on a given route) and the price differences are often steep and/or there are other sacrifices to be made (frequent flyer miles, more expensive bag checkins, etc).

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#138

Post by ohiovr »

kawfey wrote: post #86
hatchnyc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people even check what kind of equipment they are flying on before booking a ticket? I know a lot of people who are not even vaguely aware which manufacturer the plane they are flying on was made by.

I'm willing to bet airliners are going to remove any indication of what aircraft submodel is planned for the flight prior to ticketing, if not aggressively debating that move.

Safety is a good brand differentiator.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#139

Post by driverdan »

mzs wrote: post #87

>Boeing is in talks with banks to secure a loan of $10 billion or more… … >Banks that have already committed to contribute to the loan include Citigroup, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan… https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/20/737-max-crisis-boeing-seeks-...

The usual "to big to fail" suspects. If anything goes wrong they'll get another government bailout.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#140

Post by kayfox »

JaRail wrote: post #127
missosoup wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as. Yeah you will. Good luck selectively avoiding the most popular international route plane. Historically, people have been very quick to forget mishaps with particular airframes and revert to flying the most convenient/economical routes. And by the time it's flying again, it will be hands down the safest plane that's being opera…

You can check it all you want. That won't change the physics of its dynamically unstable design.

Its a stable design.

The force MCAS is correcting is a lightening of control forces near a stall. This is not allowed per FARs, so they added MCAS to force some extra force.

It will fly just fine with the computers turned off.

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