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Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

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Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#121

Post by LudwigNagasena »

stcredzero wrote: post #40
jltsiren wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is very small, and it can't support that many companies making passenger aircraft. If you want aircraft of that size, you have to buy Boeing or Airbus. Both are sold out until the 2030s. And if you are already operating Boeing aircraft, it's more cost-effective to buy more of them instead of switching to Airbus. China spent ~15 years developing the C919, and it's finally entering mass production. But it als…

The world is very small, and it can't support that many companies making passenger aircraft. If you want aircraft of that size, you have to buy Boeing or Airbus. Both are sold out until the 2030s. There's an apparent contradiction here. China spent ~15 years developing the C919, and it's finally entering mass production. But it also appears to be sold out until the 2030s. And here.

China, a country with the biggest industrial GDP (ie not services or agriculture), spent 15 years on R&D to deliver so far only 4 airframes of an airliner that is technically behind comparable Boeing and Airbus airliners.

So not really a contradiction unless you are reading it too literally.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#122

Post by zw123456 »

I know ahead of time that what I am about to say, will result in me getting yelled at by the HN crowd that what I am saying is anecdotal and all that. But, after refraining for a while, I guess I have to say something so, I know you will down vote me because this is not based on a scientific A-B test blah blah. Cool.

People's lives are at risk. And No, I DO NOT work for Boeing and never have. I work for a company that makes a product that does not involve any risk to people's lives, we make a dumb thing.

I live in Seattle, and yeah, I know a lot of people who currently do, or have worked for Boeing. So, yes, this is not a scientific study, again, down vote button is in the lower left over there. Have fun with that.

But from what I have heard, there is something "wrong" at Boeing. And yeah, this is not scientific, got it.

But, from my, unscientific study, that plant in Renton seems to be especially problematic and it sounds like from what I have heard, the Renton operation where the Max 9 and all the other Max N's are were made, there is something especially "wrong:' there. I just cannot NOT say something.

It seems like there is a pattern here, I know this is all anecdotal and all that. But it seems like that particular operation has a management problem that is putting peoples lives at risk.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#123

Post by dan_quixote »

mewse-hn wrote: post #88

This article doesn't cite sources but it seems to be just repeating every point made in the netflix doc Downfall - including the joke about McDonnell Douglas buying Boeing with Boeing's money. My friend also recommends the book Flying Blind which I haven't read yet, but both seem like better info sources than the linked article.

> the joke about McDonnell Douglas buying Boeing with Boeing's money

I used to work in aerospace adjacent to Boeing and their competitors and suppliers. This joke was oft repeated by everyone in the industry 10-15 years ago, maybe longer.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#124

Post by cratermoon »

inamberclad wrote: post #114
themadturk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, some airlines, such as Southwest, fly only 737s, taking consistency in training and maintenance to the max.

Wonder how that will work out for Southwest after this.

Sometime in 2023 Alaska Airlines completed their efforts to sell off all their Airbus and Bombardier Q400 aircraft. Alaska acquired Virgin America and its all-Airbus fleet in 2016, and the Q400s were from their Horizon Air operations. The company sold the Airbus aircraft to American and retired the Bombardiers.

The reason given at the time was the desire to simplify maintenance and parts logistics.

Now Alaska's fleet is all 737, a mix of MAX and NG models. The MAX is about a quarter of their fleet, so the current grounding has hurt them.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#125

Post by rootusrootus »

jltsiren wrote: post #47
stcredzero wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is very small, and it can't support that many companies making passenger aircraft. If you want aircraft of that size, you have to buy Boeing or Airbus. Both are sold out until the 2030s. There's an apparent contradiction here. China spent ~15 years developing the C919, and it's finally entering mass production. But it also appears to be sold out until the 2030s. And here.

While there is a growing demand for passenger aircraft, the fixed costs of getting into the business are so high that the market cannot support that many manufacturers. Not on a commercial basis, anyway. Airbus and Boeing are commercially viable, and they have customers all around the world. Comac is more of a political project, as China tries to reduce their dependence on Western technology. There are 1000+ orders f…

Up until recently there was also Bombardier, but it seems like they basically bankrupted themselves and ceded all of their commercial plane production to Airbus. Now they just do business jets.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#126

Post by cratermoon »

mcv wrote: post #34

Here's what I don't understand: the 737 MAX was introduced in 2017. In 2018, two of them dropped out of the sky, the grounded for a while, it turned out Boeing had lost its engineering culture and its priority for safety, and it became clear that the 737 MAX had some serious design problems that they had tried to fix in software. And according to this article, the 737 MAX is Boeing's best selling plane ever. Why? Why…

> Is it really that cheap?

The fuel economy is driving the switch. The 737MAX was created to compete with the a320neo. For airlines, especially with rising fuel prices, even a small % improvement in fuel efficiency gives huge returns.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#127

Post by justinclift »

boppo1 wrote: post #61
bluGill wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What choice do they have? Airplanes wear out from metal fatigue over time, so airlines must replace their airplanes regularly. It isn't safe to keep operating the same airplanes for decades. (this very much depends on what the plane is made of - so some airplanes from the 1950s are still safe while others from 2000 are not). Sometimes airplanes are scraped by selling to some "third world" airline that keeps operating…

>eventually the wings will fall off an old plane in the air. Has this ever happened for an airliner?

There's also stuff like this, where a bad repair 20+ years ago eventually leads to structural failure:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_611

This one only took 7 years from a bad repair until catastrophic failure though:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123

So "repair stuff properly" seems to be the important thing there. ;)

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#128

Post by truculent »

rgmerk wrote: post #118

Ruined or not, Boeing is too big to fail. No way in the world will airlines, or the US government, accept a world where Airbus is the only company able to sell you a passenger airliner. Nor would they accept a word where the alternative to Airbus was Comac.

In which case, isn’t it in our collective interest to stop the rot? Doesn’t this imply that government (or some other representative body) should act to stop the decline in whichever manner seems most appropriate?

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#129

Post by unethical_ban »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #102
atleastoptimal wrote: post #75

I feel like this pattern occurs in too many companies across all sectors: 1. Company is product-quality focused 2. Beats competition and creates mini-monopoly 3. Sales becomes somewhat inelastic to changes in quality 4. This leads "cost-cutting" and marketing focused execs/decision making to beat out product quality execs/decision making 5. Company's product quality takes predictable linear path to the bottom

It is a bit more nuanced: 4.1 Company starts to talk about politics instead of products in their marketing campaigns 4.2 Company starts to cut cost on workforce by pushing out experienced people and hiring cheap newbies 4.3 As a result of the previous one, expertise drops rapidly and product quality starts to drop 4.4 As the product quality decreases, bleeding experienced people makes it impossible to stabilize 4.5 T…

4.1 doesn't follow from or lead to 3.x or 4.x

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#130

Post by zw123456 »

zw123456 wrote: post #122

I know ahead of time that what I am about to say, will result in me getting yelled at by the HN crowd that what I am saying is anecdotal and all that. But, after refraining for a while, I guess I have to say something so, I know you will down vote me because this is not based on a scientific A-B test blah blah. Cool. People's lives are at risk. And No, I DO NOT work for Boeing and never have. I work for a company tha…

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