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Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

wsj.com

31–40 of 273 posts

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#31
post #5

It will be difficult for Boeing to walk back the public opinion of the 737 MAX for what they have done. I know plenty of airline customers who intend to never fly a segment that utilizes one.

They’ve already taken steps to rename it to drop the MAX moniker: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/15/boeing-737-...

I highly doubt the average consumer will think twice about flying on a Boeing 737-8200, presuming they can avoid more scandals.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#33
post #5

It will be difficult for Boeing to walk back the public opinion of the 737 MAX for what they have done. I know plenty of airline customers who intend to never fly a segment that utilizes one.

I sincerely doubt many people will remember anything about this five years from now. There have been dozens of crashes involving various models of the 737 series, and the vast majority of the population could not name a single incident. As soon as this is out of the news cycle, everyone will forget.

> dozens of crashes

That's wrong by an order of magnitude. 737 series had a total of 478 incidents, 213 of which is resulted in hull loss [1].

[1] https://aviation-safety.net/database/types/Boeing-737-series...

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#34

The FAA needs to stop hemming and hawing, being unclear about what they need, put in some overtime and get things done.

Ban the aircraft. Criminally charge everyone involved in suppressing it's serious issues and forcing it through approval. Figure out how their processes become vulnerable to corruption and attempt to change them. The problem is of course the FAA doesn't want to hurt Boeing or the industry over this. But that strongly conflicts with their job. The hope at this point seems to be to drag it out until people forget.

Why, were talking about a fatal error in one small system on a huge and complex aircraft which is 90% the same as the previous iteration of this aircraft.

We can fix these things.

We should not be approaching engineering problems with emotional reactions to crashes. The airline industry is so incredibly safe because each crash is analyzed, the problems identified and solved. If two crashes mean we should scrap it, does that mean we just stop flying because every major aircraft type has had serious incidents.

No, we fix the problems and keep flying. You don't get better at something by giving up the first time you make a mistake.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#35
post #14

So they have decided that it's cheaper to scrap that particular model than fix the issues, likely more reputation than technical.

They are suspending production until the grounding is lifted. Not killing off the product. They will of course not be paying the tens of thousands of workers that work on that product while production is suspended.

No layoffs according to CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/boeing-will-suspend-737-max-...

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#36

I'm surprised that the market hasn't reacted more negatively towards Boeing regarding the Max 8 disaster. Airlines operate on razor-thin margins (~1 to 2%), and several users of the Max 8 have had significant portions of their fleet out of service as a result. Westjet [1], for example runs 124 planes currently. 13 of which are the Max 8. Over 10% of their fleet. Southwest Airlines [2], for example, runs 748 planes, 3…

> lawsuits that are surely incoming are going to pile-drive this company into the ground

Legally, everyone is indemnified up the wazoo.

Strategically, airlines are in a worse position if Boeing goes under. Not only do they lose the planes on order. They also lose their service and replacement-parts provider. The survivors would, in the medium-term, face an Airbus monopoly and, in the long-term, a Chinese-European duopoly.

As emotionally-satisfying as it may be to see Boeing go under for its arrogance, it's neither helpful nor likely. (A well-managed break-up, on the other hand...)

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#37

I'm surprised that the market hasn't reacted more negatively towards Boeing regarding the Max 8 disaster. Airlines operate on razor-thin margins (~1 to 2%), and several users of the Max 8 have had significant portions of their fleet out of service as a result. Westjet [1], for example runs 124 planes currently. 13 of which are the Max 8. Over 10% of their fleet. Southwest Airlines [2], for example, runs 748 planes, 3…

>The lawsuits that are surely incoming are going to pile-drive this company into the ground

I'm sure the lawsuits are coming, but we're talking about Boeing here. "pile drive them into the ground" might be a bit of an overstatement. Worst-case scenario, they have to be bailed out by the government.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#39

I'm surprised that the market hasn't reacted more negatively towards Boeing regarding the Max 8 disaster. Airlines operate on razor-thin margins (~1 to 2%), and several users of the Max 8 have had significant portions of their fleet out of service as a result. Westjet [1], for example runs 124 planes currently. 13 of which are the Max 8. Over 10% of their fleet. Southwest Airlines [2], for example, runs 748 planes, 3…

Boeing is one of the pillars of the American economy and the market as well. Dumping the stock will hurt pretty much every fund that invested on it, plus Dow will plunge just because of this one stock if it's getting dumped.

Boeing, as well as many other firms, are just too big to fail suddenly.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#40
I was looking into API to make an app for avoiding this plane, then I thought maybe I should not upset those who can kill hundreds of people and expect to get away with it.

I am not a nervous flyer, I even used to do paragliding but I am pretty determined to wait few years before flying on one of those. One thing I learned about paragliding was that you must trust your equipment or don’t fly.

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