I don't understand this backlog for airplanes (Boeing and Airbus): Is this kind of backlog normal in industrial scale? Is it not viable to scale up production with the massive tail of suppliers that would all need to scale up?
It's more like long range planning with commitments as defined by airlines 10 year plans. They __don't__ want the planes now like a backlog would imply, they want them in 2021.
Also, schedules tend to align with the cycle of the industry. New planes take time to develop etc. So everything happens on a year(s) schedule, incl delivery schedules.
>Is it not viable to scale up production
And then what are you gonna do with all that infrastructure sitting idle for 8 years in between your aircraft generations? Sometimes slow is the profitable approach
The 737 (all variants) is/was/will be massively popular so I'd imagine as a project it's probably still profitable.
The danger here is reputation. Boeing has in the space of a year ruined a multi-decade reputation. I mentioned this before, but all these articles scream underlying institutional culture problems. Remember the one a month or so ago about a Boeing engineer saying he's uncomfortable letting family fly on a Boeing plane? Forget a lost order, that's existential crisis territory for an organization.
Well, that's not 100% accurate.
Airlines always want the most fuel-efficient plane now, but will settle for ASAP. With leasing, they can dump their old planes and lease new models.
That's why the Singapore A380s were chopped up this year - they were heavy and thus not fuel efficient.
The DC-1/DC-2 was developed for TWA because Boeing promised their entire 247 production run to United.
It's better for Boeing to sell 400 737s a year every year for ten years, than 800 a year for two years, then 300 a year for the next eight years.
Boeing is not integrated like SpaceX
Granted, the -MAX8's problem seems to stem from the need to race Airbus to the market and not having the time to do proper integration tests, but the difficulty with testing is directly related to complications in this development model.
Also, Boeing is way overdue for a proper 737 replacement. A 737 sized bird using 787 design principles/technology and built to properly handle the massive engines that modern customers crave.
They should definitely make that! They could call it the...737 MAXIMUM SIZE. Or maybe the 7373 MAX for short?