The big question is why they haven't done it already? Boeing's disconnect from reality is painful to watch.
An airplane is a tremendously complex machine, and building them is a well honed process with lots of checks and balances built in which protect the investment the company is making in building such a complex device.
So no doubt there are many many root cause analysis meetings which are going on to root out the failures in the process that let the plane get to this point.
But historically, the company has made modifications to the 737 airframe to provide new models and those changes have gone well. Certainly in the sense that they produced a viable airplane that was safe to fly.
I would speculate that due to the history of the 737 airframe, and the track record of creating new variants that are safe, and the challenge of stopping the manufacturing line for such a plane which literally has thousands of suppliers making parts on a schedule that has years of deliveries in it, it took this long to get through the various options that would not require stopping the production of the plane. Stopping production is literally the second worse scenario[1] for Boeing.
[1] The worst is scrapping all existing planes.
There's a point where its no longer due diligence, but decision paralysis. I don't know if were anywhere near that point with the 737 MAX, but at some point we will be, and we shouldn't ever get there.
The problem is that this will hurt tons of small businesses and suppliers more than it will hurt Boeing. It will hurt the machinists who assemble the aircraft, the network of suppliers in the Seattle area. But for the suits in Chicago it will be a metrics miss and maybe less of a bonus.
If Boeing were just one in a field of aircraft manufacturers, this wouldn't be half as catastrophic, since that whole supply chain would have everyone else to supply.
But that isn't the case anymore, and it is about time overconsolidation bit something in the arse.
This smacks of some incompetence on behalf of the FAA, since if they had a clear idea of what the requirements were for re-certification, they would also have a clear idea of how long it should take, and the last 6 months have been delays and "we will be done when were done".
I'm also not too keen on the machisimo of the FAA Administrator insisting on testing the aircraft himself.
Everyone here on HN wants this to be drawn out to punish Boeing, but its really punishing everyone, including the wallets of people buying airline tickets. Ticket prices have been high with many airlines because of their grounded fleet.
Up to the second accident FAA left much of the certification process up to Boeing(!) alone. No wonder that they discovered now that they need more time:
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2019/12/11/faa-...
They also demonstrated to the whole world that they aren't serious about safety after the rest of the world grounded the planes but they still just repeated whatever Boeing told them.
The current weakness of FAA is of Boeing's making:
https://www.economist.com/business/2019/03/23/regulatory-cap...
"Since 2001 [Boeing] has lobbied vigorously to perform more of its own safety tests. In 2005 the FAA began to allow Boeing to do more self-certification. “It’s like putting children in charge of the sweet shop,” says a former Boeing adviser. An investigation by the transportation department in 2012 found that the FAA had not done enough to “hold Boeing accountable”. It quoted FAA employees who had reported retaliation for speaking up about problems with Boeing’s previous designs."
For the 737/A320-size plane, it's now easy to tell:
- If the plane has a nice, spacious interior, it's an Airbus. The flight will be quiet.
- If the plane is crampt, it's a Boeing, and it will be a bit noisier.
I still don't really think about it when booking the flight. Schedule and price are more important.
To be honest I do: I often fly MIL-PMO and when possible I book Alitalia and easyJet flights, or Air Italy since they've been leasing two A319s from Bulgaria Air to replace their MAX 8s, rather than Ryanair specifically because their fleet is composed of Airbus aircrafts instead of Boeing (and also because Ryanair won't stop selling you stuff during the whole flight, worsening the noise situation)
I'm in MXP right now to catch a Ryanair flight and I just hope my ANC headphones won't abandon me mid-flight.
I assume it is not just one or two months until it can fly again otherwise they wouldn't stop production. But if it is long time then life and people will go on. They will find other engagements and other things to do, they have to. Could and will they be able to throw away that other engagement they started to resume this operation? I bet not easily, not all. Airlines will need something to fly, they might look for other alternatives. Lots and lots of difficulties and loss, lots and lots of money and time to restart this. I believe.
As other commenters have mentioned, the order backlog is still long, so as long as you can easily store the planes, it makes sense to keep building them.
It's really that while production operates without deliveries, it's a machine that turns cash into airplanes. Sooner or later, even Boeing is going to run a little low on cash.
They have taken just-in-time delivery to an extreme to make that money->airplane pump as efficient as possible.
There are billions of dollars of raw materials in various states of becoming airplanes across the Boeing sites. It’s impressive they were able to run as long as they did without a delivery.