Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers • Hacker News Board

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#21

Post by harmmonica » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #17

dylan604 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having doors flying off one of your planes and engine failure causing part of the cowling to bust a window and sucking a passenger out of another is definitely not a bit of politics. Nevermind the bullshit 737Max nonsense. At this point, I'd imagine any Boeing orders left are only in place because Airbus can't keep up. Politics didn't need to come within 10 miles of this decision. It's just the free cherry on top.

Incidents that are over five years old have minimal impact in terms of current competition between Boing and Airbus. The airbus A320 family is associated with 1,490 fatalities, there’s just a vast number of flights daily so tiny risks add up. Companies buying new aircraft care far more about maintenance to fuel efficiency than a few rare incidents due to already corrected issues.

Can you shed a bit more light on this? I can't find any evidence that there are that many fatalities related to that plane, at least related to its operations in flight. Seems like there are few or if my quick look shows even zero fatalities related to it flying. You wrote "associated" but can you define what you mean by that? During manufacturing, maintenance and other non-flight-related incidents?

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#22

Post by Retric » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #20

Retric wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidents that are over five years old have minimal impact in terms of current competition between Boing and Airbus. The airbus A320 family is associated with 1,490 fatalities, there’s just a vast number of flights daily so tiny risks add up. Companies buying new aircraft care far more about maintenance to fuel efficiency than a few rare incidents due to already corrected issues.

> The airbus A380 family is associated with 1,490 fatalities… What? The A380 has never had a single fatality or even injuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380#Accidents_and_inci... > Incidents are over five years old have minimal impact in terms of current competition between Boing and Airbus. Airbus (and Boeing) has a decade-long backlog. They absolutely do. https://flightplan.forecastinternational.com/202…

Ops A320. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#23

Post by tokai » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

shimman wrote: post #19

tokai wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what they need the political lobbying for. Obviously not to help their pricing.

So they need lobbying to lie to customers? Why would that help people choose Boeing when it ultimately is up the whims of one single individual that can drastically change moods every four years? There is a reason why imperialism ultimately always fails.

No. You do understand how lobbying works right? You don't lobby your customers, you lobby that single individual. Which has never been easier as the current one takes bribes almost directly and has no true opinions.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#24

Post by hgoel » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #16

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why US weapons manufactures are not lobbying harder It doesn’t really matter if your product is better or cheaper, if the customer thinks that service and spare parts might possibly be withdrawn in the future for political (or whatever) reasons they won’t buy your product.

That is what they need the political lobbying for. Obviously not to help their pricing.

If you mean they need to lobby the US government to be less schizophrenic, I agree. Though I suspect the government would just decide to start more wars.

If you mean they need to lobby the other governments, I don't think that'll work, the decreasing trust is associated with the US government's actions, not as related to the arms dealers' actions.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#25

Post by dorfsmay » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #17

dylan604 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having doors flying off one of your planes and engine failure causing part of the cowling to bust a window and sucking a passenger out of another is definitely not a bit of politics. Nevermind the bullshit 737Max nonsense. At this point, I'd imagine any Boeing orders left are only in place because Airbus can't keep up. Politics didn't need to come within 10 miles of this decision. It's just the free cherry on top.

Incidents that are over five years old have minimal impact in terms of current competition between Boing and Airbus. The airbus A320 family is associated with 1,490 fatalities, there’s just a vast number of flights daily so tiny risks add up. Companies buying new aircraft care far more about maintenance to fuel efficiency than a few rare incidents due to already corrected issues.

A380? Did you mean A320?

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#26

Post by Retric » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

harmmonica wrote: post #21

Retric wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidents that are over five years old have minimal impact in terms of current competition between Boing and Airbus. The airbus A320 family is associated with 1,490 fatalities, there’s just a vast number of flights daily so tiny risks add up. Companies buying new aircraft care far more about maintenance to fuel efficiency than a few rare incidents due to already corrected issues.

Can you shed a bit more light on this? I can't find any evidence that there are that many fatalities related to that plane, at least related to its operations in flight. Seems like there are few or if my quick look shows even zero fatalities related to it flying. You wrote "associated" but can you define what you mean by that? During manufacturing, maintenance and other non-flight-related incidents?

That was a mistake on my part those are A320 numbers not A380.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#27

Post by Retric » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

dorfsmay wrote: post #25

Retric wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidents that are over five years old have minimal impact in terms of current competition between Boing and Airbus. The airbus A320 family is associated with 1,490 fatalities, there’s just a vast number of flights daily so tiny risks add up. Companies buying new aircraft care far more about maintenance to fuel efficiency than a few rare incidents due to already corrected issues.

A380? Did you mean A320?

Yes, corrected remembered the fatalities but should have looked it up anyway.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#28

Post by harmmonica » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #26

harmmonica wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you shed a bit more light on this? I can't find any evidence that there are that many fatalities related to that plane, at least related to its operations in flight. Seems like there are few or if my quick look shows even zero fatalities related to it flying. You wrote "associated" but can you define what you mean by that? During manufacturing, maintenance and other non-flight-related incidents?

That was a mistake on my part those are A320 numbers not A380.

Ah, gotcha. Probably not supposed to reply with this, but applaud your quick correction!

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#29

Post by spamizbad » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #8

Quarrel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop payment resulted in the US pulling from the pre payment for the F35s... Which Switzerland then reluctantly agreed was allowed under the terms. As you say, totally being taken to the cleaners, and it is unclear how they escape in the short term. The more this happens though, the more deals like Italy's make senese, irrespective of the performance comparison of the two planes. If the US is going to be an unrelia…

I don't understand why US weapons manufactures are not lobbying harder. They are losing the European market just as the largest rearmament since ww2 happens. Maybe they are and its just a lost cause with the US administration.

You can’t lobby the Trump or “America First” crowd to not be themselves.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#30

Post by newtonianrules » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #8

Quarrel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop payment resulted in the US pulling from the pre payment for the F35s... Which Switzerland then reluctantly agreed was allowed under the terms. As you say, totally being taken to the cleaners, and it is unclear how they escape in the short term. The more this happens though, the more deals like Italy's make senese, irrespective of the performance comparison of the two planes. If the US is going to be an unrelia…

I don't understand why US weapons manufactures are not lobbying harder. They are losing the European market just as the largest rearmament since ww2 happens. Maybe they are and its just a lost cause with the US administration.

You have to understand that the smartest people in the US didn’t vote for this administration and are just as horrified as everyone else with how inept and pathetic this administration is. Unfortunately we’re a minority, the senate’s design (Wyoming has the same number of senators as California even though a small city in CA may have more people than the whole state) and the US is so ridiculously gerrymandered.

Sorry everybody but we just have to wait this stupidity out.