Boeing loses big order for 737 Max aircraft | Hacker News Reader

Boeing loses big order for 737 Max aircraft

bbc.co.uk

152 pointsjfk13114 comments

Probably the surprising thing is how _few_ orders they have lost. My understanding is that this is because it is very very difficult for an airline to change from Boeing/Airbus to Airbus/Boeing. They need to retool their whole supply chain and retrain all their ground staff and pilots.

...but several airlines are talking about it. Notably American https://airlinerwatch.com/american-airlines-eyes-airbus-a321... and United in the US https://airlinerwatch.com/united-airlines-considers-airbus-a... are both considering replacing old Boeing planes with Airbus.

If you look at the orders by customer[1], you will see quite a few that exclusively or mostly fly 737's.

It would be costly for an airline to have to retrain almost all their pilots, mechanics, etc on a new aircraft...and to purchase all the associated supporting equipment.

And, the Max has significantly better fuel efficiency, seating capacity, etc than other 737 models. Falling back to an earlier model isn't easy either.

They are banking on the general public forgetting about it over time. Which has happened in the past.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_...

> They are banking on the general public forgetting about it over time. Which has happened in the past.

Which almost always happen. Good strategy. Works for politicians, abusive spouses, big companies. What incentive would they have to do otherwise since society most often offers short outburst of rage, then focuses on something else ?

Regulatory agencies that actually work for the public interest would be a good start.

What would be gained by destroying Boeing? And what would be lost?

That's also how people defended slavery.

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You don't need to destroy Boeing, but we do need to tell them to suck it up and design a new plane. The sooner, the better.

There's nothing wrong with the 737MAX airframe. It's a software problem with the MCAS system.

Some might argue the engine placement is very awkward to accomodate the low slung wings. With predictable outcomes, like MCAS.

Swept wings are also unstable, requiring a yaw damper, and crashes have resulted from inoperative yaw dampers.

Of course, we could demand a return to straight wings, but then air travel would be a lot slower.

The low mounted wings on the 737 are serving a no longer needed niche. They were there to accommodate rolling air stairs, where you walk into the tarmac and walk up aircraft-internal steps to board the plane.

The last time I flew on a 757 (a couple months ago) I got on and off on the rolling air stairs.

Rolling is different, I shouldn't have used that term. The 737 can be deplaned with stairs that are integral to the aircraft.

Ryanair does still use the internal 737 stairs at some airports in Europe.

Unassisted non-compliance with FAR 25.173 begs to differ.

Keep in mind MCAS would not have existed to malfunction if the airframe was capable of complying with existing regulations unaided.

This fact alone means that the airframe does have something wrong with it.

FAA regs require an active yaw damper, because all swept wing airliners would be dangerously unstable without it.

There is no difference in principle here with the MCAS system.

Except that unstable pitch is more dangerous than yaw?

Yaw instability has resulted in fatal crashes.

I disagree that this is only a software issue: relying on only one sensor is a system issue in the MCAS not a software issue.

The worst part is that there is only one sensor because having only one sensor allowed them to not document it and requiring pilot retraining. They just found a loophole to exploit, it had nothing to do with a single sensor being a good decision.

Not sure, ensuring

1) that the regulation organisms do their job instead of relying on Boeing

2) that the 737 Max MCAS system relies on 3 sensors

seems good enough no?

The three sensors seems unlikely, and is probably a good high level signal as to whether there's a genuine standoff.

There are two AoAs and enough other sensors to cross check with already on the plane.

That would be only a software update.

The perceived cost of making business decisions that are cheaper but have the potential to kill people would go up.

I'd guess 99% of people don't even notice what plane are flying on.

> They are banking on the general public forgetting about it over time. Which has happened in the past.

And banking of course on no more crashes. They're on a tightrope for sure.

Im reasonably sure that they now have the right eyes on this type of issue. I'll concede they hadn't previously.

As I have understood, there are waiting lists at both manufacturers, and they're not short, so short-term changes are probably bad for all parties in that business.

A Saudi company changing could be more notable, because if anyone has enough money to buy themselves a better spot in those lists, I don't doubt it wouldn't be them...

I have absolutely zero affiliation with the airplane industry, so everything I said might only be coincidentally true.

Yes I think this would be a major point. Airlines are worried about what happened straight after 9/11 were many cut orders, then places like Ryanair option loads of aircraft at discount prices, then airlines struggled to get back into the booking list. There is a waiting list of many years at the moment. They would be a bit crazy to ditch their spots right now.

Of course this will shift some orders towards Airbus. But besides that Airbus won't be able to deliver additional orders on short notice, the airlines certainly don't want to give Airbus too much power by dropping Boeing completely.

The whole design behind the max was to minimize pilot training and retraining. The airlines have as much to gain from retooling an existing design as Boeing has.

The irony is that, as near as I can retrace the public timeline, American was actually the carrier that bludgeoned Boeing into producing an up-engined 737 in the first place.

http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2011/AMR-Corporation-An...

In retrospect, a lesson in not letting your biggest customers drive your development pipeline.

> In retrospect, a lesson in not letting your biggest customers drive your development pipeline.

A new airplane program is not, and pretty much cannot be, started without having major commitments from airline customers. They are developed very much based on conversations with airlines and what they need and will pay for.

Still, the decision by Boeing to try to shoehorn the new, bigger engines onto a 737 body, was a mistake. Whose job was it to know that this was not a good idea, because it would make the plane difficult to fly, and thus difficult to train for? Hint: the one that employs a lot of aeronautical engineers, and whose CEO should have been listening to them.

> was a mistake

No, it wasn't. The design of the MCAS system was faulty. Jet airliners have used augmentation to compensate for stability problems since the 707, and airliners not being flyable without the help of computers has been the norm for decades.

They are implying that the fundamental design of the 737 MAX was a mistake due to the engines. MCAS is a like applying a poorly designed bandaid to a deep vein cut.

> They are implying that the fundamental design of the 737 MAX was a mistake due to the engines.

That wasn't the mistake. The mistake is several problems with the implementation of MCAS, all straight-forwardly fixable, along with some minor additional pilot training. I think this will turn out to be a business case study in crisis mismanagement.

I also believe pilot error was a significant factor in the crashes, because during the first instance of MCAS malfunction, the pilots dealt with it and landed safely, despite not knowing about MCAS. The latter two incidents were not handled properly by the pilots, indicating a gap in training.

> I also believe pilot error was a significant factor in the crashes, because during the first instance of MCAS malfunction, the pilots dealt with it and landed safely, despite not knowing about MCAS. The latter two incidents were not handled properly by the pilots, indicating a gap in training.

This sounds disingenuous from my reading of the problem. The pilots were not trained in the new system or even told of its existence.

Seems pretty unfair to blame them for not being able to respond correctly within 3 seconds to correct a system that they didn't even know existed and literally makes the plane not respond to pilot input.

I think it's amazing that the other crew was able to survive TBH. Didn't they have to pull a fuse?

https://qz.com/1576597/off-duty-pilot-saved-lion-airs-737-ma...

It was another pilot who was on the flight that knew how to deactivate MCAS.

Hardly seems like "pilot error" when the crew that died didn't know how to deactivate a system they were never told existed.

It could be deactivated by shutting off the stab trim motors. The switches for it are right there on the center console, and pilots are trained to throw those switches in the event of stab trim runaway. The MCAS failure presented itself as stab trim runaway.

It's like if your car engine runs away, you turn off the ignition. It is not necessary to know why it ran away, just that you can shut off the engine. (Which I have had occasion to do.)

yes, but you forget to mention that before the second crash they actually disabled the stab trim motors and they couldn't manually correct the trim trying to turn the wheel with all their strength so they had to reengage them and that activated again MCAS and puff.. Or are you saying that is their fault because they should have been stronger than that killing machine?

This is a mischaracterization. The problem was everything was being squeezed simultaneously. There are lots of ways to make a 737 that's safe with new engines. A combination of schedule, desire to avoid transition training, and desire to avoid signifiant systems changes made it hard to do that though.

The critical moment was in flight testing when a pitch instability was discovered at low speed and low angle of bank. MCAS originally was a hack, but would have been safe, using a G sensor and AoA to activate. The new low speed instability didn't trigger the G sensor, and needed a bigger trim correction, so they either had to redesign the augmentation system, or make MCAS much less reliable and more dangerous. They chose to ship and meet their deadline.

> There are lots of ways to make a 737 that's safe with new engines.

Yes, but all of the non-insane ways would have required the 737 MAX to be re-certified as a new aircraft type and pilots to be re-trained before flying it. Which Boeing did not consider to be a viable option. And that decision was probably driven by their airline customers, since they're the ones who pay the costs of recertifying their pilots.

Sure, but there's an issue in business where people lacking the degree of technical understanding required to evaluate feasibility are the ones that give (or rather demand) the go ahead on a major change.

The relentless promotion of cynically optimistic arse-kissing yes-men will one day doom us all.

Reminds me of the conversations between Pan American's Juan Trippe and Boeing's Bill Allen described in Skygods [0] (don't have exact quote but this blog [1] is close enough).

> With the head of Boeing as captive audience, Trippe laid out his vision for an airliner that would multiply the astounding success of Boeing’s 707 by adding capacity for more than twice as many passengers. Allen, already sitting on the substantive plans of Boeing’s proposal for the USAF CX-Heavy Lift System (soon to be won by the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy), was more than interested.

> The meeting is supposed to have concluded with his famous line ‘If you’ll buy it, I’ll build it.’ To which Trippe replied ‘If you build it, I’ll buy it’.

> And the seed of the Boeing 747 was planted.

[0] https://airscapemag.com/2018/09/25/if-you-build-it/

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Skygods-Fall-Pan-Robert-Gandt/dp/0615...

This is hugely industry dependent. In the service provider routing industry, for example, many new features are developed after customers request them for their networks.

American already operates about ~400 Airbus 320s vs ~350 B737. [1] United also has ~200 A320s vs ~340 B737 [2].

They both have mixed fleets. Of course the story for carriers with a homogeneous fleet is very different.

Part of it is surely PR posturing though. Both to look good with customers and to improve the negotiating position with Boeing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_fleet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_fleet

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20376062 explains why: Airbus is "sold out", can't deliver more planes in the timeframes that are required. The airlines don't have much of a choice.

Unsure about American, but I am sure that United flies A320/321 and 737s both, so I don't see how switching would be that hard for them. Maybe just due to pilots?

All airlines should cancel MAX orders. After watching the CEO defend their position in the Q2 shareholder’s meeting, he killed the reputation of Boeing from investors, people and customers. Boeing deserves nothing but financial punishment and consequences of the people that died in the two crashes.

Edit: Link to the meeting https://youtube.com/watch?v=xOQmQpKHVWA

This completely unrealistic. CEOs will always defend the company. That is their job.

It was not written that he was defending the company, but depending their position. Not the same.

Definitely. However, managing public relations and the image of the company, maintaining customer relationships is also CEO’s job.

Defend in what sense?

In defending what made the company great, or just the share price?

And he failed at it, since he lost the confidence of the room after he spoke.

There are many strategies you can choose from to defend your company. Not just "we're cool guys".

A Japanese CEO crying and bowing in silence is defending the company and the brand.

This is defending the short term stock value and nothing else.

Why? The crying is obviously fake. It's just a cultural gimmick like USA's "I apologize if anyone felt hurt by what they thought we did." Crocodile tears and calisthenics don't bring back the dead or prevent future deaths.

Fake or not, it’s the symbol of total and unconditional responsibility towards their customers, not their shareholders.

Unfortunately the rest of us do not live in a culture where this is a valid course of action and like I said, criticizing a CEO for not doing it is unrealistic.

Our media is much more attack based, stock value much more tied to positive media coverage and legal proceedings against the company much more likely.

How do you know it is fake?

Their job is to maximize shareholder value. Which could certainly be accomplished in some cases by forthrightly admitting to wrongdoing. The problem is that almost invariably this action immediately precedes said CEO deciding to spend more time with his/her family.

Forthrightly admitting to wrongdoing might impact the lawsuits.

Their job is to maximize shareholder value.

This is false. A CEO's job is to run the company. The Board's job is to protect a shareholder's investment, which does not mean maximizing it.

The lie that a CEO's job is to maximize shareholder's value didn't become a popular meme until CEOs were suddenly awarded large stock compensation grants during the Reagan era, and is entirely about CEOs maximizing their personal holdings to the detriment of every other shareholder.

This is wrong. CEOs have wide latitude to decide how to maximize value, and how to measure value, but that is still their job.

CEOs raiding short term coffers is a different issue.

OK sure, but over what time frame should shareholder value be maximized? A quarter, a year, several years? The strategies might look quite different.

CEOs job is to protect reputation of the company. There are times when honestly owning your mistakes is better for reputation than pathetic attempts to save face.

And what should they buy instead? See my longer comment about that.

C919s? Here is china’s big chance I guess.

Yes, this is really giving new competitors an opening. But of course, adding a completely new supplier to your fleet is a large step for any airline and will take some time and effort to implement.

The poster was being sarcastic. There is almost zero chance that Boeing loses [US] orders to a Chinese manufacturer. The tariffs in that sector are too high, and the trust in Chinese manufacturing is too low.

Even switching from Boeing to Airbus is not likely. As you point out, switching a new supplier is a large step, and too large for many airlines to make.

China uses western avionics and jet turbines, so there isn’t much difference between it and a 737 or 320. But they don’t win out in fuel efficiency, so they probably won’t do that great outside of China and belt road countries.

Su95 sukhoi superjet also uses western avionics and is 50% owned by a western company and is competitive with comparable western models. It's still very much a failure though mostly because of supply chain economics

The other issue is if the US government doesn't want people using Huawei devices, they're probably not going to like people buying Chinese planes.

This is why the 737 MAX has to return to flight at basically any cost. It is the only US offering in that market segment, by the only US manufacturer left.

US airlines would probably be very jittery buying a Chinese place, given the current trade war with China.

For other countries, it could be a way in, especially because of the backlog on the A320. But it does mean a large investment in training and parts logistics. It would make more sense for a country that wanted to score political points with China.

The problem is, most airlines who ordered or are considering to order the 737 MAX have not much choice. The only real competitor is Airbus. But not only does Airbus alreay have filled order books, so cannot deliver any additional orders in a reasonable time frame, but also this would move the market into a near-monopoly, something that airlines are trying to avoid strongly, as that would remove their negotiation powers with the manufacturer.

This shows, that a duopoly can be as bad as a monopoly and can degenerate into one quickly. Consequently, it should be avoided as much as possible. Merging Boeing with McDonnell Douglas was a big mistake by these events. As was, not to develop a successor to the 737 even long before the MAX development started. After 40 years, tweaking a very successfull design isn't enough any more, there should be a proper successor.

Unless some more large flaws are discovered, the 737 MAX won't be cancelled and it will be bought. The market is trapped. Airlines, who operate on 737 only will have to change their operations soon, as the MAX can be only a gap-filler now. But on short notice there is no other possible replacement available. Boeing will certainly start a replacment design soon, but that won't arrive till the late 20ies. This might of course be the opening for new aircraft companies to enter the market, e.g. Chineese companies or Japanese.

In the back and forth, one thing I haven't heard much on is what could have been done to result in a clean-sheet design.

The timeline looks like Boeing was publicly leaning towards a clean sheet redesign until the end of 2011. Then, seemingly out of the blue, American made this announcement on 7/20/2011.

"As part of the Boeing agreement, American will take delivery of 100 aircraft from Boeing's current 737NG family starting in 2013, including three 737-800 options that had been exercised as of July 1, 2011. American also intends to order 100 of Boeing's expected new evolution of the 737NG, with a new engine that would offer even more significant fuel-efficiency gains over today's models. American is pleased to be the first airline to commit to Boeing's new 737 family offering, which is expected to provide a new level of economic efficiency and operational performance, pending final confirmation of the program by Boeing. This airplane would be powered by CFM International's LEAP-X engine."

http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2011/AMR-Corporation-An...

Afterwards, Boeing fairly quickly announces they'll be offering an up-engined 737 NG design.

Presumably the issues were noted at some point in the development process (~2013?).

At that point... the FAA should have been the one pointing out development issues would cause serious regulatory problems? Afaik, they don't have the funding or personnel for that level of design integration.

And like agile, the farther down the road after that decision we get, the more money is at risk and the more constrained options are.

So the answer here seems like deeper and earlier regulator involvement in the development phase?

I'm honestly having difficulty coming up with a plausible sequence of events that would have resulted in a different outcome. When Airbus released the A320neo mid-development cycle for Boeing, the die seemed cast.

Yes, I agree. What I meant was, considering that the 737 was designed in the 60ies, they should have a successor development started much much earlier (like 2000). Even with the predecessor of the MAX they were running into ground clearing issues leading to its asymmetric engine housings.

>This might of course be the opening for new aircraft companies to enter the market, e.g. Chineese companies or Japanese.

Mitsubishi is making a few moves [1], it recently acquired CRJ from Bombardier.

[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Company-in-focus/Mitsubishi...

There was that Bombardier C-Series that was competing with the low end of the 737 market, but Boeing fought so hard against it with the USITC that they were forced to basically hand it off to Airbus.

Last week Boeing announced that it would give $100m to help families affected by the two crashes.

Thats not even 300k per died person. And if you search for the price for an 737Max, you guess what it's about 100m per plane ..

In Indonesia, minimum wage is around USD 1500 annually, and not everyone gets that. Fresh grads in white-collar jobs might get maybe USD 3000 per year, or USD 5000 in the capital. If you make 5 digits you're doing well, like USD 25k per annum for a data scientist or 60k for a head of IT (those would be exceptional top jobs there, mind you). [1]

So, for the median individual in Indonesia it's several decades worth of salary, and it will help the affected families a lot. I assume that the situation in Ethiopia is not too different.

[1] https://www.robertwalters.co.id/content/dam/robert-walters/g...

i agree that it's a paltry amount.

however keep in mind that this initial 'good faith' payment by boeing does not in any way limit the rights that the families have to compensation that results from the legal system.

the actual amount will likely be a lot more than $100m. but we shall have to see.

> Last month IAG said it intended to buy 200 Boeing 737 Max aircraft.

So they lost an order of 20 planes but recently signed an order for 200?

Not all bad news.

Regardless it’s good to see real economic consequences being suffered by a company typically anointed for success by the US gov.

I wonder if IAG was given a huge discount to entice them to make the MAX look like its still in demand and give other customers confidence.

I think it's not an order per se, but a letter of intent.

I'm sure it contains some pretty good discounts and opt-outs in case Boeing cannot fulfill their Max obligations.

And note IAG currently has a lot of A320s and no 737s: getting the IAG order would be a big deal, but it could equally just be IAG trying to get into a stronger negotiating position with Airbus.

> but it could equally just be IAG trying to get into a stronger negotiating position with Airbus.

And Airbus are negotiating from a much stronger position than they were a year ago. Selling a plane that is actually airworthy does that for you.

BA used to have 737s, though.

Less than a months production. For context, Boeing has over 7 years of MAX production in backlog.

It's either Boeing loses orders or airlines lose the orders. Knowing what I've learned about the 737 just from reading the news and analysis here, I wouldn't want to get on one for a few years after it goes back into flying.

That totally depends on what the fix for the Max becomes. If it is something along the lines of all planes receive the optional equipment as well as software updates that takes into consideration that the human is constantly countering the decisions software makes the human wins, then I'd be okay with it. As it is, you know that all Max pilots have become or are becoming very familiar with how to disable MCAS.

How much testing will the fix undergo before being deployed?

How much testing will each fixed plane undergo before the first passenger flight?

For me the main problem is not MCAS but not knowing what else is being hidden from regulators and pilots.

Good. They deserve to lose it... Let the market correct.

VOX has a good explainer video on what caused the 737 Max to crash twice for anyone who doesn't know the details. Essentially, Boeing installed sensors and software to automatically push the plane nose down if the plane angle was too steep as it ascended. This software/sensor combination is implicated as the cause of the recent crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

The real reason Boeing's new plane crashed twice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY

At this point, I think everyone on HN who doesn't specifically block Boeing articles is aware of the reason.

Probably politics more than anything to do with the crashes.

What do you mean by "politics"?

The airline in question is controlled by the government of Saudi Arabia.

That's not really an answer to the question.

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