IMHO, two things keep Boeing running afloat: 1) the Airbus production queue is already full for upcoming years, and 2) their military connections and strong lobbying within US airline companies. If there were more competitors in the US, Boeing would have been out of business years ago.
United is openly fishing for a discount from Airbus by saying they will switch if they receive an offer where the economics work. But for Airbus there isn't really an incentive to hurt Boeing by offering a large discount. They are better off maximising their own revenue and letting Boeing be Boeing.
Allegedly (from just random messages across different message boards) Airbus is likely nearing their backlogs to a point in time when they plan an A320 successor. Of course, they can still build the current A320 family but their production capacity for it will be decreasing steadily in the future. So they might not need a hell of a lot more orders.
But they do want more companies in their team when the successor comes.
Government will keep BDS alive, in any case, and probably some part of BGS. I would not be surprised to see a Boeing breakup, a la GE. Keep a very watchful eye on whoever might scoop up BCA in such an event. I suspect Comac might try for it, but with a third party so as to not rouse the natives - maybe Embraer but with Chinese money.
More likely private capital, though, or some Hyperillionaire from Seatopia.
While running through the Spreewald, my troops also enjoy oral readings of such classics as "Libertarian Aryan Rocketmen will Save the West from the Red Horde".
From what I gather, the C919 in its current form is not a real threat to Airbus and Boeing - its fuel economy is in line with the previous generation of 737 and A320, and it's not really cheaper to buy either. If you look at the orders for the C919, they're mostly from China or from companies with strong ties to China ("GallopAir is a start-up airline in Brunei owned by Chinese businessman Yang Qiang")...
Boeing's not going anywhere as long as the US exists. It is the state monopoly on civil aviation. However, allowing these rogue MBAs to run amok with it over the last 20 years has been an absolute disgrace. Any sane, democratic, society that had not been beaten into the dust by regulatory capture and corporate lobbying would have cleaned house on them and sent people to jail after they killed hundreds of people through pure greed. It's a pathetic state we're in now to realize that it's probably going to take another 200+ dead Americans on a domestic scheduled flight before anything even remotely material happens about it.
Serious question: Is it remotely possible for Lockheed Martin to start making passenger jets? They’ve won every 5th gen fighter and bomber contract over Boeing.
> boeing is needed for national sovereignty concerns. Same reasons all other countries have flagship carriers.
Is there a connection between flag carrier airlines and aircraft manufacturing? That never occurred to me, since most flag carriers fly Boeing and Airbus like everybody else.
But I guess for larger states, like Aeroflot / Air China, they probably subsidize the local manufacturers?
In any case, I'm inclined to push back against your assertion that this is the "same reasons [sic] all other countires" have them - I don't think very many flag carriers are supported because of manufacturing concerns, or that the relationship is similar to the US State's relationship to Boeing. That seems like a stretch to me.
> Not about the article, but... I find it ironic that a pop-up with the title "We value your privacy" makes me accept 1532 partners to sell my data to.
Par for the course. I read the other day that a major automakers infotainment system will assure you your driving data will not be shared with third parties without your consent...on the screen where you agree to the off-screen legalese that includes a consent allow them to share your driving data with third parties.
Boeing's problems could be solved if they cleared all of the McDonnell Douglas accountants and MBAs from upper management and went back to being a company run by engineers who created fantastic aircraft designed by engineers (not focus groups) and on schedules set by the engineers. Sadly it might be too late for that.
The merger happened 30 years ago, and in fact some of Boeing's best and most successful years as a company were well after that. All the executives and "accountants and MBAs" behind it have long retired. It's time for people to stop blaming the McDonnell Douglas boogeyman and accept the fact that Boeing has simply been going down in management, quality, QA, accountability and more for many years now.
For example downsizing their Washington manufacturing facilities and outsourcing critical R&D to cheaper countries didn't come from McDonnell Douglas.
> in fact some of Boeing's best and most successful years as a company were well after that.
That's logical, isn't it? If your claim is that the company cut the long-term philosophy and squeezed short-term benefits, the most profitable time for the company is logically going to be the time where benefits go up while long-term investments are no longer made.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that your rebuttal isn't going to convince someone thinking like that.
MBA thinking is exactly about squeezing profits by cutting expenses. You can completely gut a company's future by doing so, while having multiple years of profits guaranteed by backlog orders.
There's some kind of inertia, were bad and good decisions take some time to have their effects felt.
Likewise, due to the same inertia, unless something dramatic happens, the current administration of a company is downstream the culture of previous administrations, as the people at the helm in the present were promoted, hired mostly based on the criteria of the the last past dramatical cultural change, that was the managerial takeover by the MD bureaucrats post-merge.
And how long did it take Jack Welch to bleed GE dry? Decades. With companies this size, it doesn't happen overnight. There is a LOT built up before you that you have to systematically destroy.
A lot of folks don't realize that MBAification of companies does not have an immediate feedback loop. The entire point is that in the short term it does super well, with the costs being realized in the long term.
Boeing's timeline of failure actually matches the trajectory of other MBAified companies.
> All the executives and "accountants and MBAs" behind it have long retired.
They have, but they have left the cultural infestation behind. You'd need a complete purge of Boeing's leadership, as well as a re-integration of Spirit Aerosystems.
I like this idea of geriatric McDonnel Douglas vice presidents being taken out of cryosleep every few months to make a terrible engineering decision then being put back in their cabinet.
Destroying a successful culture can happen slowly over time, but once it happens, there’s no recovery from it. That’s what seems to have happened with Boeing. The 777 was the last fully pre-merger aircraft. The 787 started right after the merger and mostly seems to have escaped the problems. But since then it’s been a shit show.
The CEO who stepped down during the MAX crashes held two engineering degrees (no MBA) and started as an engineer at Boeing well before the McDonnell Douglas merger [0].
He was CEO from 2015 onwards. The MAX' first flight was 2016. It's safe to say that Dennis didn't have a say in greenlighting the MAX program, unless he was such an impactful CEO that he could greenlight MAX and get the plane built in a year, in which — well, good job? It turns out that during the max program, Dennis was managing Boeing's security division.
Pointing to Dennis as a failure of an "engineering CEO" because of the MAX incident isn't accurate.
If a Private Equity group decided to buy them out and restructure, it would make a fascinating case study. If some radical restructuring does happen, I hope they bring along a film crew to make a documentary in the process.
"It turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies that get monopolies, like IBM or Xerox. If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful.
So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies that have no conception of a good product versus a bad product.
They have no conception of the craftsmanship that's required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product. And they really have no feeling in their hearts, usually, about wanting to really help the customers."
What's your point? During the recent troubles at Boeing, very few of their top executives came from sales and marketing backgrounds. The commercial airliner business is completely unlike the consumer electronics or office automation businesses. Airliner customers are a lot more sophisticated and care deeply about product quality issues which impact their own businesses.
Friendly reminder that Boeing has recently had a series (EDIT: one, also terrible) of engineers as CEOs. The MBA trope is a noughties-era Silicon Valley meme.
The Mad Dog nickname came not only from its MD initials but also because it took off like a rocket and makes a hell of a lot of noise. Unlike later automated planes, the Mad Dog also needs full hands-on attention from the pilot during takeoff and landing. (i.e. doesn't kill you with MCAS)
The article doesn't say they're switching to Max 9 because they care about safety or quality.
It says they're switching because Max 10 isn't certified (and probably won't be any time soon, considering recent events). I read that as they would happily get it but they worry the FAA won't allow it.
They're happy to order the Max 9 which had the door problem.
My understanding is that the Max 9 has no inherit door problem, but it had a process/installation that lead to the incident? Boeing has a problem, but not the Max 9?
The process problem _was_ specific to the Max 9 however, as it was the only one with a door plug to be incorrectly installed. The Max 8 never has that exit fitted and the Max 10 always has that exit fitted. Max 9 is the only one that can plug it.
I would second this. I believe people are bunching a lot of things together: pilot error, maintenance issues, airplane defects into one big "BOEING SUCKS" billboard.
It really makes whole thing look weird. Isn't Max 10 just bit longer version? So how can one be certified and not the other? And isn't the type rating for flying one same? If they don't make reasonable move now and finally treat them different from past 737s?
There've been so many issues it's definitely getting confusing, but the thing blocking the MAX10 certification is a problem with the engine anti-ice system.
You're correct that this problem exists on all MAX variants, but those other variants are already certified (the issue was discovered post certification), and it's deemed to be not severe enough / with a good enough mitigation that they are allowing Boeing some time to come up with a fix for the already-certified design, and continue producing it. The expectation is that once Boeing has a proper fix and retrofit plan, it will be required by an AD on all aircraft. However it's unlikely the FAA will certify the new MAX10 variant with this known issue, and so far Boeing doesn't have a fix.
Before all the posters who only read the title and post w/ assumptions as is common in Aviation threads.
> United specified that the removal of the MAX 10 from its delivery outlook was due to the unknown certification timeframe for the largest variant of the MAX family.
> “We are in the market for A321s, and if we get a deal where the economics work, we’ll do something. If we don’t, we won’t and will wind up with more Max 9s.”
The A321neo delivery schedule is late and incredibly backlogged too.
The Airbus backlog is so comically long it's hard for me to imagine why United would even suggest that they could get A321s. If they're not already in the queue, they're not getting A321s. Is there something I'm missing? Some way for United to jump the Airbus queue?
A321neo: 1282 delivered (since 2017!), 6169 orders, so 4887 in the queue (or about 25 yrs worth [1]).
A320neo: 1929 delivered (since 2014!), 4124 orders, so 2195 in the queue (or about 11 yrs worth).
Across all aircraft, 15,276 delivered, and 23,828 ordered, so their outstanding orders are more than half of all Airbus ever delivered (and more than 60% of all Airbus in operation).
Must be nice to work for their sales department...
Probably court of public opinion noise making for possibly investors?? It's not like they can use it as leverage against Boeing, as Boeing would be well versed in Airbus production capabilities. So, get out in the public to would be arm chair emotional investors to win some over is me being generous in such a lame comment from them.
i wouldn't be surprised if they can get their hands on "2nd hand" a321s from companies that might find they don't need it or they want to shift to another model
So going with Max 10s wasn't a realistic alternative anymore (at least in part due to deserved regulatory scrutiny on Boeing), so to still have leverage in negotiations with Airbus they switched to Max 9 as their backup plan?
This is good. Boeings problems can be slowed down if they stop producing that airplane. They need to simplify and regroup. United just gave them another reason to do so. Let’s hope other airlines follow.
The Max 9's that United has asked them to switch to is the one that was recently grounded for the door plug issue.. I'm not so sure this is the sign that you're assuming it is?
Yeah. It seems like United really needs these planes and is prioritizing converting to an order than they can get sooner. And AA is confident that this type will eventually get certified (so they are ordering them) but don't need them as sooner as United.
Readit News
But they do want more companies in their team when the successor comes.
That doesn’t rule out bankruptcy.
More likely private capital, though, or some Hyperillionaire from Seatopia.
While running through the Spreewald, my troops also enjoy oral readings of such classics as "Libertarian Aryan Rocketmen will Save the West from the Red Horde".
And death, of course. Hot fiery death.
Boeing's not going anywhere as long as the US exists. It is the state monopoly on civil aviation. However, allowing these rogue MBAs to run amok with it over the last 20 years has been an absolute disgrace. Any sane, democratic, society that had not been beaten into the dust by regulatory capture and corporate lobbying would have cleaned house on them and sent people to jail after they killed hundreds of people through pure greed. It's a pathetic state we're in now to realize that it's probably going to take another 200+ dead Americans on a domestic scheduled flight before anything even remotely material happens about it.
Is there a connection between flag carrier airlines and aircraft manufacturing? That never occurred to me, since most flag carriers fly Boeing and Airbus like everybody else.
But I guess for larger states, like Aeroflot / Air China, they probably subsidize the local manufacturers?
In any case, I'm inclined to push back against your assertion that this is the "same reasons [sic] all other countires" have them - I don't think very many flag carriers are supported because of manufacturing concerns, or that the relationship is similar to the US State's relationship to Boeing. That seems like a stretch to me.
Par for the course. I read the other day that a major automakers infotainment system will assure you your driving data will not be shared with third parties without your consent...on the screen where you agree to the off-screen legalese that includes a consent allow them to share your driving data with third parties.
For example downsizing their Washington manufacturing facilities and outsourcing critical R&D to cheaper countries didn't come from McDonnell Douglas.
That's logical, isn't it? If your claim is that the company cut the long-term philosophy and squeezed short-term benefits, the most profitable time for the company is logically going to be the time where benefits go up while long-term investments are no longer made.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that your rebuttal isn't going to convince someone thinking like that.
There's some kind of inertia, were bad and good decisions take some time to have their effects felt.
Likewise, due to the same inertia, unless something dramatic happens, the current administration of a company is downstream the culture of previous administrations, as the people at the helm in the present were promoted, hired mostly based on the criteria of the the last past dramatical cultural change, that was the managerial takeover by the MD bureaucrats post-merge.
Boeing's timeline of failure actually matches the trajectory of other MBAified companies.
They have, but they have left the cultural infestation behind. You'd need a complete purge of Boeing's leadership, as well as a re-integration of Spirit Aerosystems.
The problem is Boeing.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg
Pointing to Dennis as a failure of an "engineering CEO" because of the MAX incident isn't accurate.
"It turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies that get monopolies, like IBM or Xerox. If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful.
So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies that have no conception of a good product versus a bad product.
They have no conception of the craftsmanship that's required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product. And they really have no feeling in their hearts, usually, about wanting to really help the customers."
But then they'd be providing value to the clients and not shareholders. We can't have that, can we.
Friendly reminder that Boeing has recently had a series (EDIT: one, also terrible) of engineers as CEOs. The MBA trope is a noughties-era Silicon Valley meme.
The current CEO is an accountant. While he went to Virginia Tech, it wasn't for engineering.
The prior CEO was an engineer.
CEO before that was an MBA with an American Studies degree. He oversaw the MAX program.
The Mad Dog nickname came not only from its MD initials but also because it took off like a rocket and makes a hell of a lot of noise. Unlike later automated planes, the Mad Dog also needs full hands-on attention from the pilot during takeoff and landing. (i.e. doesn't kill you with MCAS)
Source: https://simpleflying.com/why-was-the-md-80-called-the-mad-do...
It says they're switching because Max 10 isn't certified (and probably won't be any time soon, considering recent events). I read that as they would happily get it but they worry the FAA won't allow it.
They're happy to order the Max 9 which had the door problem.
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You're correct that this problem exists on all MAX variants, but those other variants are already certified (the issue was discovered post certification), and it's deemed to be not severe enough / with a good enough mitigation that they are allowing Boeing some time to come up with a fix for the already-certified design, and continue producing it. The expectation is that once Boeing has a proper fix and retrofit plan, it will be required by an AD on all aircraft. However it's unlikely the FAA will certify the new MAX10 variant with this known issue, and so far Boeing doesn't have a fix.
I'm guessing that's what's happening. Or I hope. No more self certifying and waivers.
> United specified that the removal of the MAX 10 from its delivery outlook was due to the unknown certification timeframe for the largest variant of the MAX family.
> “We are in the market for A321s, and if we get a deal where the economics work, we’ll do something. If we don’t, we won’t and will wind up with more Max 9s.”
The A321neo delivery schedule is late and incredibly backlogged too.
A321neo: 1282 delivered (since 2017!), 6169 orders, so 4887 in the queue (or about 25 yrs worth [1]).
A320neo: 1929 delivered (since 2014!), 4124 orders, so 2195 in the queue (or about 11 yrs worth).
Across all aircraft, 15,276 delivered, and 23,828 ordered, so their outstanding orders are more than half of all Airbus ever delivered (and more than 60% of all Airbus in operation).
Must be nice to work for their sales department...
[0] https://www.airbus.com/en/products-services/commercial-aircr...
[1] with the assumption that the production rate remains the same as since introduction (obviously unrealistic, just to get a rough picture).
Like this message is literally saying "we are stuck with our second choice".
As a vendor, this is a sign that you're really boned. Maybe this order will go through, but you're going to have to work your butt off after this one.
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Finally, killing off the 10 will likely force Boeing to actually build a new plane instead of iterating on a half century old design.
Personally I hate the 737. It needs to be put out to pasture and replaced with an aircraft design that represents modern ideas.
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