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E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

nytimes.com

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Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#31

Post by cjrp »

notfromhere wrote: post #19
foepys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Boeing also market the plane as an evolution of the 737 that doesn't require retraining? So pilots with experience on the 737 can automatically fly the 737 Max?

Yep, that was the big selling point since airlines hate retraining pilots. Totally backfired in that regard though.

Also if an airline is going to have to retrain pilots, they might also look at completely different manufacturers (e.g. Airbus) and play them off against each other to get a better deal.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#32

Post by ak217 »

paganel wrote: post #14
alkonaut wrote: post #2

So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…

It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png

Wow. This is pretty ridiculous considering all three of these planes seem to have been closer to their destination than the origin, making it safer to just finish the planned flight.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#33

Post by sushibowl »

bwang29 wrote: post #20

What would financially happen to an airplane company with a fleet of dozens of Max 8s?

Depends on how big the airline is, what percentage of its fleet consists of max 8s, etc.

Generally, planes like this have high operating costs, and usually are kept in the air pretty much constantly to be able to make a profit. Having one grounded potentially means losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#34

Post by jka »

erokar wrote: post #11
alkonaut wrote: post #2

So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…

Indeed. Norwegian is doing this because the optics now force them to do so, not self-assessment of the risk. They, and the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority, failed in that regard.

Do you have a reference to confirm that this was a knee-jerk/optics reaction, out of interest? (definitely curious to see how airlines/authorities are reaching these decisions)

The MCAS system and the way it was introduced sound a little like a patch, and slightly haphazard.

While training & runbooks and procedures are important, take-off is a busy time, and the Max-8 is (afaik) intended to operate very-nearly-like a standard 737, so it's not inconceivable that pilots wouldn't have time or intuitively know how to handle this situation.

Ultimately any vehicle/software/tool is going to be safest when the responsible designer makes it intuitive and reduces the possibility of failure cases rather than adding workarounds or runbooks to patch over them and/or disclaim the liability.

Anyway, it seems like it could be early to strongly assign blame or critique until we know how serious the issue is.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#35

Post by Scoundreller »

paganel wrote: post #14
alkonaut wrote: post #2

So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…

It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png

I speculate we’ll see more airspace closures once countries give enough time to avoid stranding their nationals.

I wonder if, say, Germany, waited until its planes had to chance to land before closing their airspace, while other countries/companies, like Norwegian got caught by surprise.

Convenience over safety?

Total speculation on my part.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#36

Post by bengotow »

benj111 wrote: post #27
ElBarto wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A potentially interesting tidbit from Norwegian's Wikipedia page: > Diversion to Shiraz, Iran December 2018 > A Norwegian Boeing 737 MAX suffered an unspecified technical failure over Iran in December 2018. The pilot made a precautionary landing at Shiraz Shahid Dastgheib International Airport without incident. Spare parts required to make the aircraft airworthy were not available in the world outside the United Stat…

That seems like a disincentive to buy American aircraft. If you're a reasonably sized international airline, it seems like a reasonable possibility that you'd have to (or want to) land in a territory that the US in unfavourable toward. Why take the risk?

This is somewhat true, but to be fair there are only a few countries the US and it’s allies don’t do business with - as long as you don’t land in Iran or North Korea you’d be in pretty good shape.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#37

Post by Scoundreller »

ak217 wrote: post #32
paganel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png

Wow. This is pretty ridiculous considering all three of these planes seem to have been closer to their destination than the origin, making it safer to just finish the planned flight.

Getting back is another story. Stranding a plane at an away-station can be costly.

Especially if there’s some repair required before next takeoff.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#38

Post by Svip »

jka wrote: post #34
erokar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Norwegian is doing this because the optics now force them to do so, not self-assessment of the risk. They, and the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority, failed in that regard.

Do you have a reference to confirm that this was a knee-jerk/optics reaction, out of interest? (definitely curious to see how airlines/authorities are reaching these decisions) The MCAS system and the way it was introduced sound a little like a patch, and slightly haphazard. While training & runbooks and procedures are important, take-off is a busy time, and the Max-8 is (afaik) intended to operate very-nearly-like a…

Over 300 people dead sounds pretty serious to me. It's probably safest to ground the plane model until we know more.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#39

Post by aunty_helen »

ak217 wrote: post #32
paganel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png

Wow. This is pretty ridiculous considering all three of these planes seem to have been closer to their destination than the origin, making it safer to just finish the planned flight.

Both incidents have been in the first few minutes of flight and this is also a 'long term safety' thing. They're relatively safe to fly still.

On the other hand, if your plane gets stuck in a foreign country the bill just for parking the thing could be massive. Better to get it back while you still can.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#40

Post by pcardoso »

paganel wrote: post #14
alkonaut wrote: post #2

So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…

It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png

This is Turkish Airlines, not Norwegian...

Edit: Two are Turkish, only one is Norwegian

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