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Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

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Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#271

Post by jjeaff »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #173
stg22 wrote: post #140

The role of McDonnell-Douglas is exaggerated. Boeing had achieved pretty close to a monopoly in the mid-1970s, but things had changed by the mid-1990s. 1. Domestic airlines protected by regulation had been effective monopolies and Boeing's engineer-led culture thrived in an environment where airlines didn't care about costs. But that environment died with airline deregulation in 1978 and an engineer-led culture made…

What's wild is that all this happened even with the NSA conducting industrial espionage on Airbus on behalf of Boeing and M-D.

I don't think secret tech or cloak and dagger business moves are what makes an aircraft company win. it's a far more complex amalgamation of government intervention, regulations, institutional knowledge, and company culture. Things you could never steal with spies.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#272

Post by [deleted] »

noahtallen wrote: post #137
cratermoon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been thinking about this one, but I'm not sure it makes sense. Let's say that Alaska flew half Airbus. And let's say half their 737 fleet is MAX's. (E.g. a quarter of the fleet, same number they have today.) And as time goes on, it becomes increasingly 737MAX as they upgrade to get better fuel efficiency. How would this help them? A large % of the fleet is still grounded.

[deleted]

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#273

Post by cratermoon »

noahtallen wrote: post #137
cratermoon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been thinking about this one, but I'm not sure it makes sense. Let's say that Alaska flew half Airbus. And let's say half their 737 fleet is MAX's. (E.g. a quarter of the fleet, same number they have today.) And as time goes on, it becomes increasingly 737MAX as they upgrade to get better fuel efficiency. How would this help them? A large % of the fleet is still grounded.

This math is wrong. The MAX is a quarter of the all-737 fleet. If Alaska flew half Airbus, an a quarter of 737s were grounded, then it would a quarter of half, or an eighth. You're suggesting that the MAX would make up half their 737 fleet, "as time goes on", but then that would be true in an all 737 fleet as well. Either way you do it, the result of having some Airbus models would be a smaller portion of the fleet grounded.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#274

Post by ks1723 »

naasking wrote: post #229
stg22 wrote: post #140

The role of McDonnell-Douglas is exaggerated. Boeing had achieved pretty close to a monopoly in the mid-1970s, but things had changed by the mid-1990s. 1. Domestic airlines protected by regulation had been effective monopolies and Boeing's engineer-led culture thrived in an environment where airlines didn't care about costs. But that environment died with airline deregulation in 1978 and an engineer-led culture made…

> an engineer-led culture made it more difficult to compete in a cost sensitive environment. I know this is a common sentiment, but I don't quite get it. Engineering is often about optimizing multivariate functions, and cost is just another variable to optimize. If you frame it properly to engineers, they can solve cost problems too.

This is too simple. For large endeavors (building a plane) it is impossible to formulate all contributions to all quality criteria/cost and constraints into a technical engineering optimization problem. Let alone when re-structuring and optimizing the company organization and processes to build those planes at the same time.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#275

Post by Log_out_ »

SpecialistK wrote: post #53
mcv wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why are they not also getting into the 737-size market, if that's such a huge market? If even the questionable 737 MAX is sold out for decades, that sounds like a pretty lucrative market to be in. It sounds to me like if you build something that works, you will sell as many as you can build.

One chilling effect was what Boeing and the US gov't did when Bombardier in Canada developed their own 100-130 seat brand new ("clean sheet") aircraft. They levied so many tariffs that the project was economically unviable. So Bombardier sold it all to Airbus. Now Airbus has two series of single-aisle aircraft that are more competitive than Boeing's 737 (the A220 and A320.)

One can imagine how bad things must be behind the scenes if with that level of protectionism and political security deals backing the planes are grounded constantly. In working capitalism it's not the csuits that decide to make a great product, it's the competitive situation that forces everyones hand. Imagine Boeing as a ussr state owned conglomerate, who's directors try to game the metrics of the boss for a promotion. And we all know how that journey ended.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#276

Post by AdrianB1 »

unethical_ban wrote: post #129
AdrianB1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It does. When you have nothing big to inovate to most products, you need to tell a story to keep the attention of the customers. This is where 4.1 comes into the picture.

When 4.1 changes the direction into politics, you start doing it internally. That leads to the next points.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#277

Post by p_l »

refurb wrote: post #256
lmm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in a stable business like groceries where you can be confident that your market will still be around in 25 years, sure. But that doesn't apply to a lot of businesses.

Precisely. Who accurately predicted the shift from long-haul, high-capacity airliners to smaller, more fuel efficient airliners to fit with a hub-and-spoke model? Now layer that on top of the decade it takes to get a new plane from drawing board to delivery. From what I've read, it sounds like Boeing completely lucked into it . It wasn't some smart person who could accurately predict the future. And to be honest, a l…

A380 was the hub&spoke design, whereas 787 went for long range point to point that could fly with smaller airports

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#278

Post by AdrianB1 »

astrange wrote: post #190
AdrianB1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Does Boeing have marketing campaigns? They're B2B.

Gillette was B2B until 10 years ago, but it was one of the biggest spenders on marketing as percentage of their product total cost. There is no pure B2B if your brand is known to public.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#279

Post by mcv »

noahtallen wrote: post #137
cratermoon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been thinking about this one, but I'm not sure it makes sense. Let's say that Alaska flew half Airbus. And let's say half their 737 fleet is MAX's. (E.g. a quarter of the fleet, same number they have today.) And as time goes on, it becomes increasingly 737MAX as they upgrade to get better fuel efficiency. How would this help them? A large % of the fleet is still grounded.

You're proposing to replace the non-MAX 737s with Airbus, but I think it would make a lot more sense to replace the 737 MAXs with Airbus. That way, nothing gets grounded.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#280

Post by fransje26 »

throwup238 wrote: post #83
dylan604 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing a lot of the purchase orders were placed well before the MCAS incidents occurred. These purchases tend to be contract based, and not something you can just leave with the cashier when you suddenly decide not to purchase them. So you're contractually obligated to spend the money, so might as well get a plane out of it and hope for the best

The list of orders and deliveries is public: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_... Most orders were before the accidents but the vast majority haven't been canceled. Boeing has only delivered a fraction of them; they have another 3,000 to deliver before they get to the orders placed after the accidents (~1400).

> but the vast majority haven't been canceled.

What a load of bull. Just last week the Seattle times was mentioning that the MAX had had 1200 orders cancelled.

And here is a Reuters article citing 480+ MAX orders cancelled, just for the first 9 months of 2020.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26Y2AD/

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