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Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

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Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#281

Post by mcv »

toyg wrote: post #241
kelnos wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US many airlines have shifted to single-aisle "mid-sized" planes for domestic routes due to deregulation around direct service - instead airlines can use a hub-and-spoke model with several connecting flights as opposed to only providing direct routes with enough demand to fill a plane I think this is no longer strictly true. In the early days of deregulation, yes, absolutely, airlines went to a hub-and-spoke…

I agree. The trend in Europe is actually the opposite, with point-to-point now considered the winning approach. Consumer preference for this modality is actually a significant factor in the dramatic rise of low-cost carriers (Ryanair, easyJet, etc). Hub-and-spoke is obviously still around, particularly for intercontinental flights, but the commercial failure of the giant A380 indicates where the market actually is.

The failure of the A380 still surprises me. Wasn't the 747 super successful? What's wrong with the A380? All of a sudden, now that Airbus has the biggest plane, big planes aren't good anymore?

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#282

Post by kelnos »

zw123456 wrote: post #130
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…

[dead]

I suspect you were downvoted because 80% of your post was about how you expect to be downvoted (when HN guidelines ask that we not talk/complain about downvoting), and then other 20% was "there is something wrong at the plant", but you didn't elaborate on that at all. I didn't learn anything useful or interesting from your post, and I'm not getting that time back.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#283

Post by [deleted] »

breadwinner wrote: post #57
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? 737 MAX uses 20% less fuel. Incidentally, this fuel-efficient design is what lead to the design defect. The fuel efficiency is thanks to larger engine (larger engines burn hotter and use less fuel). To make the larger engine fit under the wing without raising the fuselage, they had to reposition the engine forward. This forward-positioning of the engine causes the nose to pitch up when acce…

[deleted]

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#284

Post by kelnos »

arcfour wrote: post #269
kelnos wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to do any marketing when you're a government-protected monopoly and customers have a choice between having phone service with you, or no phone service at all.

But why put out a quality product then?

You can still feel pride in your work while being granted a monopoly.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#285

Post by mcv »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #109
soperj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason they didn't want to raise the fuselage was to pretend it was actually a 737 and not a completely different plane, so that they could avoid all the testing required. If they'd just built it properly in the first place...

There was no way to raise the fuselage. That would require longer landing gear with no space in the wings to retract it, so it required new wings, leading to re-certifications of both the planes and the pilots and the associated costs. This grand-fathering of 737 is the reason it still does not have fly-by-wire in 2024: it simulates the antique original 737.

Does putting bigger engines more forward really have less impact on certification and training than higher landing gear and wings to fit them? Couldn't the effect of those wings have been corrected in a way similar to MCAS?

Or was misleading people on the invasive nature of the changes always the point? And MCAS is easier to hide than new wings?

> This grand-fathering of 737 is the reason it still does not have fly-by-wire in 2024

The 737 does not have fly-by-wire? Then how does MCAS work?

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#286

Post by kelnos »

jethro_tell wrote: post #230
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save for perhaps the development of transporter technology or an unending deluge of viral pandemics, making airplanes for commercial aviation seems fairly predictable as to whether or not it'll exist in 25 years.

To some extent, but your airplane customer has quite a bit more flexibility than a grocery customer. I'm probably not going to buy French perishables but an airbus is a different story.

The question was whether or not your market will exist in 25 years, not whether or not your customers will consider a competitor's product.

And regardless, I have quite a lot of flexibility as a grocery customer. I can go to Safeway, Whole Foods, Grocery Outlet, or my local small grocery around the corner. Target and Walgreens even have some groceries too.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#287

Post by shiroiuma »

shiroiuma wrote: post #161
jewayne wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, a whole lot of people in this thread don't know about Jack Welch and his outsized influence on the current state of US business. No, US businesses did not always focus exclusively on current quarter's earnings, nor did they lay people off every year to juice the share price. In fact, before Jack Welch, many US corporations openly said that their mission was to "build/provide X", and that dividends to shareholder…

I wonder what things would be like now if someone went back in time and assassinated Jack Welch as a child....

I wonder why I'm being down-voted for this. Obviously I'm not advocating murder unless you really believe in time travel; it's a thought experiment about how the present would be different if this individual had not gotten to the position he did in the corporate world, similar to the questions about the effects of murdering Hitler before he joined the Nazis.

My thought is that taking out baby Jack Welch probably wouldn't have that much effect, and someone very similar would have come along not much later. I think a big part of the reason many big American companies were able to function the way they did (basically not worrying so much about profits) was because America got rich by being the one untouched industrial power at the end of WWII, and this gave them the luxury of building these companies into powerhouses that didn't have much competition to worry about and that could be idealistic and also wasteful. But this advantage eroded after several decades so it eventually became more important to maximize profitability and this required (or facilitated) someone like Welch.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#288

Post by toyg »

mcv wrote: post #281
toyg wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The trend in Europe is actually the opposite, with point-to-point now considered the winning approach. Consumer preference for this modality is actually a significant factor in the dramatic rise of low-cost carriers (Ryanair, easyJet, etc). Hub-and-spoke is obviously still around, particularly for intercontinental flights, but the commercial failure of the giant A380 indicates where the market actually is.

The failure of the A380 still surprises me. Wasn't the 747 super successful? What's wrong with the A380? All of a sudden, now that Airbus has the biggest plane, big planes aren't good anymore?

I think it was a combination of cost, incompatibility (it typically required airports to fix their runways to accommodate it), and the above-mentioned fact that Airbus' core European market had largely moved towards low-cost PtP. The A380 makes sense only for hub-and-spoke, and/or flights over 4-5h. COVID was the nail in the coffin.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#289

Post by 400PoundHacker »

mcv wrote: post #281
toyg wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The trend in Europe is actually the opposite, with point-to-point now considered the winning approach. Consumer preference for this modality is actually a significant factor in the dramatic rise of low-cost carriers (Ryanair, easyJet, etc). Hub-and-spoke is obviously still around, particularly for intercontinental flights, but the commercial failure of the giant A380 indicates where the market actually is.

The failure of the A380 still surprises me. Wasn't the 747 super successful? What's wrong with the A380? All of a sudden, now that Airbus has the biggest plane, big planes aren't good anymore?

The 747 was largely successful because of its then unprecedented range and cheaper fuel prices at the time, as well as its easy conversion to a high capacity freighter. That’s why today, with much more fuel-efficient and long range 787s and A350s, Boeing had to quit making the passenger version in 2017 and the freighter version last year. And even in the decades before cancelling, Boeing barely managed to sell a handful.

The A380 had long range, but not to the extent of the 787 or A350, and it didn’t have their fuel efficiency, and there are structural choices that make freighter conversion difficult (like a middle floor too weak for cargo without reinforcement) and less economical in the first place (more volume available than weight it can support).

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#290

Post by ahartmetz »

Animats wrote: post #85
jltsiren wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Airbus was a political project. It took them over 20 years before they produced anything good. But then they got it right.

In fact, their first product, the A300, was a technological milestone, and sold 561 after initial difficulties. The A310 had more industry firsts. The next product, the A320, was again a technological milestone. That was 16 years after the A300 release and indeed about 20 years after the start of the program - but by no means the first good product from Airbus.

Back to topic, Comac is not starting with a bang like Airbus did - but they don't have to. Same quality, slightly different, slightly cheaper could work after reaching governement-aided critical mass. Such government aid got Airbus started and notably did not cripple it.

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