Worst possible news for Boeing

CBC reports a Boeing plane (787?) that leaked fuel within ten months of transfer to Canada had falsified repair records and inspection records.
Boeing admitted to the truth of the allegations bur did the usual "isolated incident" routine.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers

"With a strong dollar, a big part of the attraction was price. Engineers in India made around $5 an hour; it’s now $9 or $10, compared with $35 to $40 for those in the U.S. on an H1B visa, he said. But he’d tell clients the cheaper hourly wage equated to more like $80 because of the need for supervision, and he said his firm won back some business to fix mistakes."

Boeing had 5 dollar an hour engineers designing parts for it's 737max. When the management of Boeing put profits before safety, it killed hundreds of people.

Looks like some of that same quality is going into the 787.

Is it the wage, the wage-cost or the quality of the coders that really made the difference?

Quote: Fleastiff

Is it the wage, the wage-cost or the quality of the coders that really made the difference?

I've never heard of De Havilland's falling out of the sky.

Quote: petroglyph

I've never heard of De Havilland's falling out of the sky.

Didn't they make the Comet, highly prone to in flight fires due to main fuel tank overflow outlet feeding into cabin heater intake.

Only personally familiar with Beavers, Otters and Dash8's. WW2 Beavers are still favorites in the bush.

Point was, it seems like less potential for ***k ups, when there's only one chef in the soup.

But if Boeing thinks it best, to shop out the coding on god knows how many different computers on a 737, that have to interface with each other is the smartest thing to do for the company, then so be it. Eventually the bullspit meets the road.

I've been on projects where design is shopped around to different engineers and it is easily visible in the field where things changed from one to the next. Oft times the parts that were designed by one would interface with each other, the problems arose where one had to fit another that had never met prior.

Different tolerances etc. compounded over the amount of interfaces times xy. I would wager somewhere in that giant soup of different coders, at least one of them was expounding on their resume.

Delta, the only major USA airline ( Delta, American, United, Southwest) without any Boeing jets on order (received their last one on 27 June 2019) just broke their June record for domestic load factor with 90.9% for the month. Delta has only broken 90% on three previous July months in 2008, 2009, and 2014.

Southwest peak domestic load factor was 87.6% in July 2015.

Delta made the decision to give every single order to Airbus long before the B737MAX crashes, but it turned out to be the luckiest decision that the most profitable of USA airlines has made.

Delta's operating revenue is up 5% in first quarter of 2019, but net income is up 28%.
Southwest's operating revenue is up 4% in first quarter of 2019, but net income is down 16%.

Smaller airline companies like JetBlue, Allegiant, Spirit, and Frontier do not fly Boeing jets, and Hawaiian does not operate the B737. Alaska and Sun Country (from Minneapolis) have not yet taken delivery of the B737MAX.

Quote: Pacomartin

Delta, the only major USA airline ( Delta, American, United, Southwest) without any Boeing jets on order (received their last one on 27 June 2019) just broke their June record for domestic load factor with 90.9% for the month. Delta has only broken 90% on three previous July months in 2008, 2009, and 2014.

Southwest peak domestic load factor was 87.6% in July 2015.

Delta made the decision to give every single order to Airbus long before the B737MAX crashes, but it turned out to be the luckiest decision that the most profitable of USA airlines has made.

Delta's operating revenue is up 5% in first quarter of 2019, but net income is up 28%.
Southwest's operating revenue is up 4% in first quarter of 2019, but net income is down 16%.

Smaller airline companies like JetBlue, Allegiant, Spirit, and Frontier do not fly Boeing jets, and Hawaiian does not operate the B737. Alaska and Sun Country (from Minneapolis) have not yet taken delivery of the B737MAX.

I did not realize that Frontier didn't have any Boeing jets. I guess I just don't fly them enough. They seem to be expanding in Las Vegas so I will probably start flying them more.

Quote: DRich

I did not realize that Frontier didn't have any Boeing jets. I guess I just don't fly them enough. They seem to be expanding in Las Vegas so I will probably start flying them more.

Frontier was founded in 1994 with a small fleet of older B737s, but they retired the last one in March 2006 and transitioned to an all-Airbus fleet.
12 Boeing 737-200
19 Boeing 737-300

The standard size B737-800 or MAX 8 and the A320ceo or A320neo are very competitive, but the larger A321ceo / A321neo is vastly superior to the B737-900/900ER or the MAX-9/10. The superiority is related to the longer landing gear which allows Airbus to install engines with larger fan diameters. It gives the bigger planes better fuel economy and longer range (and no MCAS). Because JetBlue, Frontier and Spirit are making such heavy use out of the bigger Airbus single-aisle jets they simply find it easier to run an all Airbus fleet.

Allegiant only flies the smaller A319ceo and A320ceo. They used to have over 80 MD jets and half a dozen B757s. Despite having a fleet of 90 Airbus jets, they only ordered 13 of them as brand new, and collected the rest of the fleet as used aircraft.

While Alaska Air had no Airbus jets, they bought Virgin America whose entire fleet was Airbus craft. But as their primary airport is Seattle, they would have trouble operating with an all Airbus fleet as corporate loyalty would probably drive many passengers and the Boeing account to another airline. Alaska was clearly leaning towards returning to an all B737 fleet, but they delayed delivery of the first ones until this summer. Clearly those deliveries are on hold, so they will probably evaluate their situtation shortly. One possibility is they could sell their Airbus jets that they inherited as they should command a premium price at the moment, and double down by ordering a large delivery of MAX jets which have to be available at a good price. Of course, if there is another MAX crash, they will probably have to sell the entire airline to JetBlue for fire sale prices.

MCAS was self-certified by Boeing; No FAA review or involvement. Single sensor commanding powerful control inputs was unknown to faa engineers in department with high turnover.