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United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

reuters.com

241–250 of 301 posts

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#241
I can't believe no one has linked L. J. Hart-Smith's classic 2001 paper "Out-Sourced Profits" yet!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/02/04/2014130646...

It offers a detailed look at Douglas Aircraft and their doomed attempt to boost profits via outsourcing.

Those familiar with the commercial aviation business know that Boeing's "purchase" of McDonnell-Douglas resulted in wholesale importation of Douglas's accounting wizardry to what had been a largely engineering- and safety-driven corporate culture.

Relevance to the MAX fiasco and the tardiness of Boeing's NMA designs is left as an exercise to the reader…

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#242

It will be interesting how Boeing/Airbus/traditional carriers react when China fully enters the market with Comac-built/branded planes. Commercial flights of its first plane, the C919 are slated for 2021. The whole 737 MAX fiasco really came at a bad time for the US aerospace industry, and if the other comments about Airbus being just as bad culture-wise are true (profits/jobs over serious engineering), then China co…

It will be interesting how Boeing/Airbus/traditional carriers react when China fully enters the market with Comac-built/branded planes. Commercial flights of its first plane, the C919 are slated for 2021.

Eh, the Chinese aren't a threat despite what McNerney thought. If nothing else the C919 isn't Comac's first attempt at an airliner, the ARJ21 was.

Airliners are extremely complex. Take a look at Mitsubishi. They've got experience building planes, turbines, etc. Yet Mitsubishi is still struggling with the MRJ, in large part because the MRJ is the first Japanese built airliner in an extraordinarily long time. As for the Chinese, McDonnell-Douglas sold tooling to the SAIC (now Comac) so that they could build licensed MD-80s (some of which are flying in the US). The tooling was eventually used to develop the ARJ21 and Comac still couldn't make it work well. There are a few ARJs flying in China, but even the domestic airlines don't want them. The Canadians tried their hand at a modern airliner with the C-series, and that pretty much bankrupted Bombardier.

China could really be set up to take a lot of commercial aircraft market share over the coming decades.

Even if (or when) Comac were magically able to produce a competitive airliner, there's more to selling planes than just building them. Support is a huge issue. The Russians have significant experience successfully building airliners and yet even with western turbofans Sukhoi couldn't find a market for their SuperJet. They sold a few to the Belgians and the Mexicans but those have largely stopped flying. Why? There's no support. Boeing and Airbus have huge support networks all over the globe. Comac has absolutely nothing like this in the works or in place.

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#243
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is stupid; let people have their own values and convictions. Also there is a train to most airports to avoid taking a car.

People are allowed to have their own convictions, I'm also allowed to call them stupid given they follow no data whatsoever.

No you can't, not on HN. Please see the guidelines here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#244
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicion: the whole world lets the FAA validate airplanes and then sort of rubber stamps. Boeing was able to capture the FAA, but Airbus wasn't(since it's a foreign company). As such Airbus is still working with a proper adversarial regulator, whereas Boeing can get away with more cut corners. Eventually that screwed them. The EUs move for greater local safety review, ironically, might make Airbus less safe, sinc…

> Airbus is still working with a proper adversarial regulator I'm not sure this is true in a practical sense. For example, Airbus does the same unbelievable things with AoA sensors that Boeing did with MCAS: even if they have two or three of them on an aircraft, they don't compare them before allowing one sensor to drive automatic functions, so a single failed sensor can cause the airplane to do unexpected and danger…

The Qantas Flight 72 incident was quite a bit different, as all AoA sensors were working correctly. The issue was due to corruption on one of the CPU exploiting these AoA sensors value [1]. Though you are entirely correct that there was a design flaw and the incident should not have happened, since these corrupted values ended up overriding the correctly calculated ones from the other ADIRU units.

[1] "The exact nature of the corruption was that the ADIRU CPU erroneously re-labelled the altitude data word so that the binary data that represented 37,012 (the altitude at the time of the incident) would represent an angle of attack of 50.625 degrees." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72#Potential_tri...

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#245
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the recalls have been addressed?

Depends on if they cheated through the initial inspection. Of course mistakes happen, but Boeing explicitly bribed FAA.

That's quite an accusation. Do you have evidence for it?

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#246
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Airbus isn't focused on profit Why would you say that? > profit (cutting corners) Is profit the same as cutting corners?

The context of the reply is why Airbus would not encounter the same organizational faults as Boeing. The general consensus is that Boeing pursued profit over safety with respect to the MAX. & they did so by cutting corners.

I think it is fair to say that Boeing cut some corners which resulted in the current situation - but even Airbus surely only prioritises safety over profit to a point - and I'm also sure Airbus cuts some corners. And this is also not really clarifying why Airbus, a publicly listed company with shareholders, is not focused on profits.

I think what is being missed here is nuance - I don't think air-travel with 0 risk is possible - most things come with risk and if we are not willing to consider anything else nothing will ever get done.

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no kidding. I'm putting puts on BA ahead of their upcoming capsule failure in two weeks.

Except the whole point of this subthread is that Boeing's stock price never faces any actual consequences, regardless of how badly the company screws up. Boeing will not be allowed to fail, even if it personally bankrupts every taxpayer in the United States. And they know it.

Puts are short term, not long term. I agree that boeing will not be allowed to fail. Let's assume that it gets that bad. At what valuation will the company in the immediate wake of a bailout? 125% of current value? Or 75% of its current value?

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#248
post #238
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People traveling for business. And they're more profitable for reasons not relating to class of seat.

Premium economy is profitable and robbing economy and business. We might see a return to a happy medium

I would so love this. It seems like it shouldn't be too much to ask to spend 50% more and actually get an armrest and a seat that doesn't make my tailbone numb after a few hours. In percentage terms, it's not a lot of space. If a couple inches for an armrest is to wide to fit in an existing plane in a 3+3 config, maybe they should plan better for the next generation of planes.

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#249
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Airbus isn't focused on profit Why would you say that? > profit (cutting corners) Is profit the same as cutting corners?

The context of the reply is why Airbus would not encounter the same organizational faults as Boeing. The general consensus is that Boeing pursued profit over safety with respect to the MAX. & they did so by cutting corners.

You really think Airbus will never prioritise profit over increasing safety? And if so do you think that Airbus planes are 100% safe?

Re: United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

#250
post #95

America is going to pay for the cronyism that merged every airplane manufacturer into one and eliminated internal competition. If you don't have internal competition, you'll collapse in the face of external competition. There is no way to get away from Boeing without getting away from the American aerospace industry entirely, a problem that didn't exist back when McDonnell Douglas was around.

We pay for this all over the place and not just in planes. Look at it in communications, entertainment, social media. Stock price is valued as more important than choice for the consumer.

> Stock price is valued as more important than choice for the consumer.

By who? And why should those that value it more than choice for the consumer value choice for the consumer more? And how would they even go about doing that?

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