American Airlines Chief Executive Doug Parker said on Friday that even if other countries delay the ungrounding of the MAX, once the FAA approves it, American will start flying its 24 aircraft.
24 aircraft don’t seem like a lot but the results speak for themselves: American Airlines cuts profit forecast as 737 MAX woes bite.
American Airlines slashed its profit forecast Friday largely due to the crisis around the Boeing 737 MAX, a somewhat more profound hit to operations and customer bookings than at other carriers affected by the jet’s grounding.
The US carrier estimated an overall hit of $350 million to its 2019 earnings as a result of the grounding ordered by global regulators in mid-March following two deadly crashes. That has forced the cancellation of nearly 15,000 flights and the re-accommodation of almost 700,000 customers.
Damn the pilots’ concerns. Get those aircraft flying. Profits are at stake.
Would you have any concerns about flying on the 737 Max after it approved?https://t.co/0d6WwGbPR0
— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) April 28, 2019
Also see Is 1 Hour of iPad Training on the 737 Max All That’s Needed?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Boeing trying to make a flawed airplane safe instead of making a safer plane. Must be paying their engineers a lot of money.
I’m sure the business people getting paid more than the engineers had more influence over the design than the engineers.
Touche!
It’s systemic across all of America’s once-were engineering greats. Money printing and regulations, have ensured that the people who have the greatest influence on companies’ bottom line, are not the engineers and production workers involved in making the actual product. But rather finance guys, “managers,” lawyers, regulator liaisons and other non product ancillaries.
Over time, the guys who contributes most to the bottom line, are the guys promoted into executive and other decision making positions. Where they inevitably make decisions, and set priorities, based on the areas of the business that they know. Which is very much not product related.
Given the environment we live in, where what matters for financial outcomes is closeness to regulators and money printers, this is good for shareholders. But hardly for neither customers, nor for America as a builder of superior products.
If Boeing had spent the money on engineering, that they had spent over the past 20-30 years on executive compensation that was above and beyond market rates, they could’ve had a modern 737 replacement.
It’s not really up to Boeing. As long as the debasement music goes on, Boeing has no choice but to dance. After all, that’s where all funds to pay for engineering now ultimately comes from. Not from selling superior product profitably. So Boeing, like all US industrials, have little choice but to become primarily suckers at the teets of The Fed, government and ambulance chaser rackets.
Relegating product development and production to a distant second: Just some little detail necessary to serve as an excuse to sell paper; and to show those given privilege to decide where to direct the freshly printed welfare money The Fed handed them, that you are at least as good at shaping and complying with regulations, and kowtowing to ambulance chasers, as anyone else is.
So, in order to have any funds at all, Boeing has to pay to hire well connecteds positioned to get money from the Fed’s welfare queens. As well as other well connecteds who can keep Boeing on the regulator’s good side. And who can play ball with the ambulance chasers…… Otherwise, they’d have no business at all. The engineering and building part, will have to make do with funds left over. After all those, important, functions are properly funded.
Boeing bent over backwards to keep the 737 name because they didn’t want to have to go through full new plane approval from the FAA.
So, no one at the FAA saw that the engines were bigger and moved forward and thought that maybe shifting the center of gravity forward and having a lot more weight on the wings should require some inspection.
I feel really confident flying knowing the FAA has a handle on things.
As a aviation enthusiast over my entire life, I can tell you I have never seen such a collection of people that sound like experts when they are not.
The level of misinformation and stupidity is getting close to Russiagate levels.
Absolutely agree with you. let’s be clear, Boeing and the FAA have one chance to fix the aircraft so that they rebuild trust in the B737MAX. So many armchairs expects…
So please correct the misinformation, if indeed, you see it.
It seems to me that you are putting people down for saying what they believe to be true.
It think that it is a good idea for the uninformed public to learn more about this. I have always found that one of the best ways to learn is to say clearly what you believe. When you are wrong, people will correct you and your understanding will improve.
It doesnt matter if those of us who dont know much fail to become complete experts. Each increment of understanding will allow us to make better decisions. From what I can see, that increased understanding will oblige Boeing, Airbus and the airlines to work together to provide safer planes.
Here’s the deal. Automation and computerization in aircraft has caused several accidents and incidents in the past, in more aircraft rather than the 737 only. To single out the 737 at this stage seems more political than anything else.
For many years, there has been a concern that pilots have become more of system managers rather than stick and rudder people, and current trends and training have often emphasized technology over flying prowess. Maybe the reason why Southwest has been a safe airline is because for many years they did not allow their pilots to fully utilize the automation technology available to them.
If you have a self-driving car, don’t you think you may lose some of your ability to drive a car in the end?
In many recent accident reports, including the Asiana #214 crash, the reports have indicated that the complexity of aircraft systems has been a contributing factor to these accidents.
So to simply state it, the 737 is being singled out over already standard industry practices in construction and automation.
Someone, or a group, with insight into aircraft safety, the aircraft industry and aircraft in general, should put together a site making it easier for people to determine what aircraft, how old they are, pilot training requirements and other information on a per flight basis. So that end users have an easier time making ticket buying decisions, based on something other than just Expedia’s rock bottom lowest price.
People don’t just buy the absolute cheapest of any other complex product. Which is what incentivized those who make them, to not build the absolute cheapest junk possible. The same dynamic would work wrt aircraft as well, but for it to do so; it can’t be too labor intensive for prospective ticket buyers to gather the relevant information. Economic actors respond to incentives. Airlines, and by way of them aircraft makers, will too, if the ones ultimately paying for the product starts getting pickier about what they are getting for their money.
Yes it would be good for the consumer to be able to make a well-informed decision. While it would be simple to create a data base, flights are subject to last minute plane changes. No traveler wants to arrive at the gate only to find the plane of their choice is now unavailable; and now their choices are to buy another ticket for a later flight, or clutch the armrest really tightly.
Give it some time, and enough reviews and feedback, and even patterns of unusual numbers of last minute plane changes will be ferreted out.
If the type of concerns raised by the 737 Max persists, instead of being forgotten as soon as the next time Trump, or Musk, tweets something nonsensical, someone will do this. It’s too easy to put affiliate links to alternate flights providing a different “product flavor” right on the website, for it not to be viable; assuming a meaningful share of the flying public is genuinely concerned.
Boeing made many mistakes. Greed over safety.
“In creating MCAS, they violated a longstanding principle at Boeing to always have pilots ultimately in control of the aircraft,” said Chesley B. Sullenberger III, the retired pilot who landed a jet in the Hudson River. “In mitigating one risk, they created another, greater risk.”
“Even Boeing test pilots weren’t fully briefed on MCAS.”
“Therein lies the issue with the design change: Those pitch rates were never articulated to us,” said one test pilot, Matthew Menza.
Google “nytimes com/2019/04/11/business/boeing-faa-mcas”
Software developer and pilot’s comments.
“It is likely that MCAS, originally added in the spirit of increasing safety, has now killed more people than it could have ever saved. It doesn’t need to be “fixed” with more complexity, more software. It needs to be removed altogether.”
Google spectrum.ieee org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer
3 airline pilot’s response
“As an industry expert, I have flown the 737 max as a line captain and it was my 12th type rating. The MCAS is the tip of the iceberg, this airplane is majorly flawed not only aerodynamically but also technically.
Never before have I encountered such strange behavior from an airliner.”
Google moneymaven. o/mishtalk/economics/airline-pilots-respond-to-boeing-737-max-unsafe-to-fly-it-s-not-just-boeing
Another critical software flaw was found regarding the flaps. Boeing only checks for errors after crashes now? What else is wrong with it?
How many other “flaws” are there that haven’t caused crashes yet?
Google boeing-confirms-additional-problems-with-boeing-737-max-flight-controls
Boeing workmanship is so bad on the Air Force’s new tanker aircraft that they have refused any more deliveries. Tools and parts were found left inside sealed areas of the aircraft. Garbage has also been found in brand new 787s, including a ladder that could have jammed the tail. Qatar Airways has refused delivery. Have the Max aircraft been inspected for garbage?
Google nytimes com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems
A Southwest 737 Max had an engine failure as well and had to make an emergency landing. They were just trying to move the empty plane. CFM engine overheating and failure is another issue.
Southwest had a deal with Boeing that no training would be required for the 737 Max or it would cost Boeing $1 million per plane. That explains why the bad aerodynamics and MCAS was kept a secret.
Google and watch the video of a former Boeing operations analyst; cnn com/2019/04/05/business/boeing-737-max-production-cut/index
Good Heavens, this is where a little knowledge gets you in trouble. Sully does not like Airbus, which he flew, because Airbus does not allow the pilot to get ultimate control of the aircraft. If you think this hasn’t caused problems and accidents before and recently, you haven’t read much.
Let’s see. We have Sully, a Boeing test pilot, a software developer and pilot, 3 airline pilots, the Air Force and Qatar Airways. Who are you again?
Again, pay attention. I’m not disagreeing with Sully. If you would have read more of his articles before, you wouldn’t want to fly on Airbus aircraft, and that is his opinion.
If you want to make sure you don’t get on a 737 Max for an upcoming flight, book Delta. They don’t have any 737 Max aircraft. Maybe they will expand their routes.
I find it ironic that American Airlines ranked #4 safest among hundreds of airlines in the January 3, 2019 Airlineratings.com survey. CNN has an interesting article from the same date. It digests the ratings into a condensed version. However, none of this matters if you are on that one unlucky flight.