You are right this issue shouldn't be discussed here. I am posting something on the test politics board.
Off Topic -- United Airlines Maintenance
- Thread starter dailybuck777
- Start date
I don't know, if it's relevant, then it's relevant. Have these stupid programs infested everything to the point where you can't discuss anything?
Crazy. But to be fair that problem has nothing to do with Boeing or the 747. The plane has an engine problem. Boeing doesn’t do engines
I know those GEnx engines had an airworthiness directive for heir low pressure turbine shaft. Not sure if that was ever resolved, but the softball sized hole appears to be around where the low pressure turbine blades would be.
So why with absolutely 0 evidence did you jump to DEI? It the type of answer that someone with no clue and an agenda would give.
The average annual flight hours of a military plane is 250 hours per year where as a commercial airliner typically averages about 3500 hours per year. That is almost 10 times the wear and tear per year.
I used to edit aerospace news for a major publication. A coupla things I would share.
1) Air travel around the world is ridiculously more safe than it was even 25 years ago. Fatal accidents involving jetliners are incredibly rare, especially in the US and Europe and among top caliber airlines. That's what made the 737Max disasters such a big deal -- crashes due to airframe failures/malfunctions, especially in newly manufactured jets, almost don't happen any more.
2) Boeing is suffering from 25 years of bad short-sighted corporate leadership and it may be irretrievable at this point. Too many Boeing CEOs from 1996 on (beginning with the terrible Phil Condit) were focused on pleasing Wall Street and their own stock bonuses instead of being focused on the formidable competition from Airbus. Probably the single worst decision Boeing made was to bring in a Jack Welch disciple, Jim McNerney, who was appointed Boeing CEO after he lost the battle to be GE CEO.
What Jack Welch did to GE, McNerney basically did to Boeing. It made a lot of money for a lot of people for a while, but now the party's over and Boeing's commercial airplane business is starting to circle the drain. Their biggest source of income, the 737, is really not terribly competitive with the Airbus 320 and 321. Boeing sells most of what it sells only because Airbus doesn't have enough production capacity so Boeing gets the spillover.
2a) Boeing's safety problems have aggravated its crisis by leading to losses and several billion dollars in extra debt. But Boeing's core problem is that its narrowbody business is not competitive. The 737 is still based on a design dating from the late 1960s. It is sorely in need of a complete new model, but Boeing probably no longer has the resources to do this.
The most exciting new jet design in the world right now is the long-range Airbus A321neo, which has 5,000 mile range in an inexpensive narrowbody. Airbus has an enormous backlog of these things, like 5k. Boeing has absolutely nothing to compete with this jet and no prospect of anything in the near or distant future. Airbus, once it gears up production, really could have a monopoly on narrowbody jets in the next 15 years and that would put Boeing out of the commercial airline business. It's not clear Boeing can do anything at this point to stop this.
3) The Alaska incident with the badly installed door plug might not be a big deal but in the context of lots of manufacturing issues with Boeing planes, it's a big deal right now. The FAA used to basically trust Boeing because Boeing was run by really conscientious engineers who obsessed on getting things right. Now Boeing is run by bean counters who obsess on not losing money. So the FAA has to totally revise how they regulate Boeing and the trust has to be gone -- and lack of trust means more regulation and more cost. So it backfires for Boeing in the long run.
4) Spirit Aerosystems used to be Boeing Wichita. It was spun off by the bean-counters in 2005 because that was good for the stock price and no doubt got Jim McNerney a few million more in bonus that year. I think Spirit is probably still a really good manufacturer but the relentless pressure to streamline and cut costs, well sometimes corners are cut and the Alaska incident shows this. Not only were the plugs installed badly but it wasn't caught by inspections. So this is a major crisis at Spirit, which affects Boeing, but because Boeing no longer owns Spirit, they they don't have the power to fire people and fix the place.
5) The number of jobs in aerospace manufacturing in the US is godawful huge. I forget but it is huge. If Boeing goes down and American manufacturing is just producing components for Airbus, that is shitload of jobs lost. But again, it's not clear what could be done to prevent this short of some kind of Airbus-like initiative supported by the government (which won't happen in the USA).
1) Air travel around the world is ridiculously more safe than it was even 25 years ago. Fatal accidents involving jetliners are incredibly rare, especially in the US and Europe and among top caliber airlines. That's what made the 737Max disasters such a big deal -- crashes due to airframe failures/malfunctions, especially in newly manufactured jets, almost don't happen any more.
2) Boeing is suffering from 25 years of bad short-sighted corporate leadership and it may be irretrievable at this point. Too many Boeing CEOs from 1996 on (beginning with the terrible Phil Condit) were focused on pleasing Wall Street and their own stock bonuses instead of being focused on the formidable competition from Airbus. Probably the single worst decision Boeing made was to bring in a Jack Welch disciple, Jim McNerney, who was appointed Boeing CEO after he lost the battle to be GE CEO.
What Jack Welch did to GE, McNerney basically did to Boeing. It made a lot of money for a lot of people for a while, but now the party's over and Boeing's commercial airplane business is starting to circle the drain. Their biggest source of income, the 737, is really not terribly competitive with the Airbus 320 and 321. Boeing sells most of what it sells only because Airbus doesn't have enough production capacity so Boeing gets the spillover.
2a) Boeing's safety problems have aggravated its crisis by leading to losses and several billion dollars in extra debt. But Boeing's core problem is that its narrowbody business is not competitive. The 737 is still based on a design dating from the late 1960s. It is sorely in need of a complete new model, but Boeing probably no longer has the resources to do this.
The most exciting new jet design in the world right now is the long-range Airbus A321neo, which has 5,000 mile range in an inexpensive narrowbody. Airbus has an enormous backlog of these things, like 5k. Boeing has absolutely nothing to compete with this jet and no prospect of anything in the near or distant future. Airbus, once it gears up production, really could have a monopoly on narrowbody jets in the next 15 years and that would put Boeing out of the commercial airline business. It's not clear Boeing can do anything at this point to stop this.
3) The Alaska incident with the badly installed door plug might not be a big deal but in the context of lots of manufacturing issues with Boeing planes, it's a big deal right now. The FAA used to basically trust Boeing because Boeing was run by really conscientious engineers who obsessed on getting things right. Now Boeing is run by bean counters who obsess on not losing money. So the FAA has to totally revise how they regulate Boeing and the trust has to be gone -- and lack of trust means more regulation and more cost. So it backfires for Boeing in the long run.
4) Spirit Aerosystems used to be Boeing Wichita. It was spun off by the bean-counters in 2005 because that was good for the stock price and no doubt got Jim McNerney a few million more in bonus that year. I think Spirit is probably still a really good manufacturer but the relentless pressure to streamline and cut costs, well sometimes corners are cut and the Alaska incident shows this. Not only were the plugs installed badly but it wasn't caught by inspections. So this is a major crisis at Spirit, which affects Boeing, but because Boeing no longer owns Spirit, they they don't have the power to fire people and fix the place.
5) The number of jobs in aerospace manufacturing in the US is godawful huge. I forget but it is huge. If Boeing goes down and American manufacturing is just producing components for Airbus, that is shitload of jobs lost. But again, it's not clear what could be done to prevent this short of some kind of Airbus-like initiative supported by the government (which won't happen in the USA).
Easy skippy. Just a hunch….based upon decades in the industry…and I think others have now provided evidence that this is a real possibility as a significant factor.
Anytime something other than safety is emphasized as the number one goal, then safety is not the number one goal.
American Airlines Plane Makes Hard Landing In Maui, Six Injured
An American Airlines Airbus A321neo made such a hard landing in Maui that six people were injured, and the return flight was canceled.
onemileatatime.com
Well, Max is back in the air, at least for Alaska Airlines. United is not so clear. Boeing is now saying it cannot delivery the Max 10, which United has ordered (over 200 of them) and has engaged in talks with Airbus regarding the 320neo. Not sure the deets but it could be that Boeing is gong to offer to make neo's instead of the Max to seel to airlines.
@tboyer what do you think of this? With 10,000 neos on order and the MAX tanking, this may be the end for Max and, perhaps, Boeing is we once knew it.
www.investors.com
@tboyer what do you think of this? With 10,000 neos on order and the MAX tanking, this may be the end for Max and, perhaps, Boeing is we once knew it.
Boeing 737 Max 9 Flights Resume, Earnings Due; Did United Just Bail Out?
Boeing stock eased ahead of Q4 results Wednesday as Alaska Airlines resumes 737 Max 9 flights. United Airlines seeks Airbus deal.
www.investors.com
I don't think they are mutually exclusive and I don't think this is the place to discuss it.
I think that Max 10 will be delayed instead of starting delivering next year as contracted.Well, Max is back in the air, at least for Alaska Airlines. United is not so clear. Boeing is now saying it cannot delivery the Max 10, which United has ordered (over 200 of them) and has engaged in talks with Airbus regarding the 320neo. Not sure the deets but it could be that Boeing is gong to offer to make neo's instead of the Max to seel to airlines.
@tboyer what do you think of this? With 10,000 neos on order and the MAX tanking, this may be the end for Max and, perhaps, Boeing is we once knew it.
Boeing 737 Max 9 Flights Resume, Earnings Due; Did United Just Bail Out?
Boeing stock eased ahead of Q4 results Wednesday as Alaska Airlines resumes 737 Max 9 flights. United Airlines seeks Airbus deal.
There are only two true manufacturers of large commercial airlines. And a huge employer all across the country. Losing Boeing would be disastrous. Ain’t gonna happen.
I wouldn't say Max is tanking yet. Too many airlines fly 737s and recertifying pilots is very expensive (and especially difficult in a world with severe pilot shortages). Max may be starting to become toxic with passengers but it doesn't matter because flights are full and passengers can't exactly be picky about what they want to fly on. (and btw I wouldn't personally feel flying Max is risky, even after the recent horrors; it's a modern jet with tons of redundancy built in)Well, Max is back in the air, at least for Alaska Airlines. United is not so clear. Boeing is now saying it cannot delivery the Max 10, which United has ordered (over 200 of them) and has engaged in talks with Airbus regarding the 320neo. Not sure the deets but it could be that Boeing is gong to offer to make neo's instead of the Max to seel to airlines.
@tboyer what do you think of this? With 10,000 neos on order and the MAX tanking, this may be the end for Max and, perhaps, Boeing is we once knew it.
Boeing 737 Max 9 Flights Resume, Earnings Due; Did United Just Bail Out?
Boeing stock eased ahead of Q4 results Wednesday as Alaska Airlines resumes 737 Max 9 flights. United Airlines seeks Airbus deal.
A lot of current Max sales Boeing only gets because Airbus's backlogs are so long. United is frustrated because it wants those 10s now, but it won't necessarily get them any sooner from Airbus. But over the next few years Airbus is investing in production capacity. When they can manufacture 1,000 jets a year, Boeing may lose so much market share that it will be just a winding-down operation. Airbus isn't going to let off the gas. And if they screw up (like with the A380, a freaking $30 billion mistake) the Euro governments just bail them out anyway.
I think Boeing has about 5 years to change the dynamic and I really don't know how they do it. They needed to launch the Max and have it stable and THEN announce a new clean-sheet narrowbody to leapfrog the A320 (which is also a dated design, just not as dated as the 737). Even if they launched a program today it would be 8-10 years till they're delivering jets in quantity, but they are years from an announcement. You can't be talking customers into launching a new aircraft family if you're not demonstrating that you can successfully build the old one.
That is not a problem that Boeing used to have. But pretty much since the McDonnell-Douglas merger Boeing has trouble executing. The 787 wasn't nearly the home run it should have been because Boeing corporate botched the outsourcing arrangements. The 767 tanker program was supposed to be a layup, it was all building on established platforms and well developed technology. But it turned out to be a nightmare because Boeing just couldn't execute and then their relationship with DOD went sour. And the 737 has been one misstep after another for close to 20 years now.
Boeing moved their corporate HQ to Chicago because of that stupid GE mindset that corporate leadership should only care about financials. But it seems since that move Boeing's engineering leadership in Seattle has struggled. Maybe the distance between corporate leadership and engineering leadership is really a problem -- maybe (well, not maybe, obviously) Boeing clearly fails to get resources put in the right places. There's a pattern of going cheap, then having a crisis, then being forced to spend billions to put fires out and then not having money for R&D.
Jack Welch and his disciples had this ideology that margin was everything, therefore manufacturing was a bad business because margins would never be as good as they are with, say, financial services.
That whole idea is completely discredited now (it killed GE for starters) but meanwhile Boeing still has its Chicago corporate leadership that acts as if Boeing isn't an airplane manufacturing company. Boeing makes planes. They make money through engineering. Chicago still acts as if Boeing is a ****ing investment bank.
They should get the hell out of Chicago and heck, move their corporate HQ to South Carolina if they don't want to be in Seattle. But one way or another corporate has to pay more attention to making airplanes if they're going to make any attempt to catch up to Airbus. You gotta count beans, sure, but you also have to make planes and not screw them up or there are no beans to count.
Their current CEO, Calhoun (who won't be in his job much longer), says he cares about airframe manufacturing (esp. when they have subassemblies falling out mid-flight) but he isn't demonstrating it. They need a total culture change in Chicago and I don't see it happening.
If I were in Boeing Chicago I would want those executives on the phone to Seattle and South Carolina and Wichita every hour of every day saying, how's it going building airplanes, what can we do now to keep production running smoothly next year and not have any problems with the FAA or subassemblies falling out of planes because someone forgot to install bolts?
But you know that's not how it goes. Instead the average Boeing Chicago executive is asking, how much money did we make in the last 12 hours? Is there a corporate jet available to take me to Davos next week? Is my bonus going to be enough to buy that island that I have my eye on near Guam?
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that is what the article says but it isn't that simple. When a large item is delayed, that means the carrier has to elongate the life of the current well-worn 737s. And not just the airframe but the seating and interior. If they fall behind airlines that have aligned with Airbus and the new interiors, they look really bad. Plus parts, training etc have to be extended. That is why the article is saying that United has opened up talks with Airbus. It also said that the CEO of Boeing is meeting with Airbus giving rise to speculation of some kind of joint effort in manufacturing. Perhaps United gets neos and Boeing makes them. Perhaps there is a full merger plan afoot. Regardless, quite a mess for Boeing.
Being a public company is quite a challenge today. You have to balance the short-term investors to keep your job as well as the long-term institutional investor. In my world, companies have five-year plans to boost their value and then to liquidate. My current employer had an annual kickoff meeting. Our challenge is that there are so many institutional investors nobody can buy because nobody is willing to sell. Only on transactions is the market value set. We had a very large investor approach us, our CFO told me last week, discussing the problem because they want to invest. I think the CFO was telling me to buy if I can find a few shares here and there because we are going to announce another round or split, which will drive up the value.
Back to my old company. I work in technology. When a CFO ascends to CEO it is time to bail out. They simply run the company based on quarterly performance from their spreadsheets. They do not see the horizon. They have no strategic mindset. As such, the stock performs great early but they've robbed Peter to pay Paul. The product begins to suffer and sooner or later, its a big ****ing mess. That is where I see Boeing. The investors will have to sign up for a multi-year reclamation project and then execute on cleaning house.
Initial report by NTSB indicates that the affected engine had been borescoped four days prior (by contract maintenance) and that the “combustor diffuser nozzle case port plug was not secured in the case…..”
NTSB investigates Boeing 737-8 rudder defect on United jet
The NTSB has published a preliminary report after a United Airlines pilot reported experiencing ‘stuck’ rudders upon landing a Boeing 737 MAX 8 in New York.
www.aerotime.aero
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Boeing is on a roll. Add it to the list:
www.yahoo.com
Alaska Airlines flight carrying pets arrives with cargo door open as carrier and Boeing face $1B lawsuit
Embattled Alaska Airlines is at the center of a second aviation drama after a plane arrived at an airport gate in Portland, Ore. last Friday with its cargo door open.
May have nothing to do with BoeingBoeing is on a roll. Add it to the list:
Alaska Airlines flight carrying pets arrives with cargo door open as carrier and Boeing face $1B lawsuit
Embattled Alaska Airlines is at the center of a second aviation drama after a plane arrived at an airport gate in Portland, Ore. last Friday with its cargo door open.
Hey, good news, the FAA finally showed up. Don't you just love government beauracracy? They always show up after something goes wrong, never before. Sure, they signed off on the safety of the airplane, but you can't really expect them to verify it ahead of time.
FAA saw Boeing supplier using liquid Dawn soap on 737 Max door seal: NYT
Spirit AeroSystems mechanics then used a wet cheesecloth to clean up the soap after installing the door seal, The New York Times reported.
www.businessinsider.com
Do they use Coke-a-Cola to loosen rusted nuts and bolts?Hey, good news, the FAA finally showed up. Don't you just love government beauracracy? They always show up after something goes wrong, never before. Sure, they signed off on the safety of the airplane, but you can't really expect them to verify it ahead of time.
FAA saw Boeing supplier using liquid Dawn soap on 737 Max door seal: NYT
Spirit AeroSystems mechanics then used a wet cheesecloth to clean up the soap after installing the door seal, The New York Times reported.www.businessinsider.com
I sure hope so. I only want loose rusty bolts on my new airplanes.
IMHO, media hype. The media always piles on. From what I've seen the only egregious Boeing issue has been the exit door. The wheel falling off, the engine catching fire...these are NOT Boeing problems but carrier maintenance problems.
Documents show Boeing saw South Carolina as worst option for 787
SEATTLE - Newly uncovered Boeing Co. documents show the company's own executives believed that Project Gemini - their plan to punish workers in this state by establishing a second 787 line in South Carolina - was their highest risk option for their new Dreamliner jet and the one most likely to...
peoplesworld.org
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