Forget the fines. Leadership at Boeing needs to be criminally prosecuted. Send them to a federal penitentiary. Send a message to those wanting to cost cut on mission critical items. Regulators in this country are asleep at the wheel
So Southwest is all-in on not just Boeing, but 737s. That's their entire fleet. It makes a lot of things simpler. Could they boycott and switch to Airbus? Possibly, but at massive cost and logistics nightmares. Given their logistics failures elsewhere, they'd be fools to try to exit Boeing over this.
It’s an interesting question. Something seems clearly rotten at Boeing related to their recently designed 737 variants. Does the rot extend to older variants of the airframe? It has historically been considered very capable and reliable… the U.S. military still uses it to fly VIPs around the world.
Read these emails and chats from Boeing employees in charge of safety and compliance, who brag to each other about pulling a "Jedi mind trick" on the regulators and how they deserve to get paid more for all the money they're saving the company.
https://fortune.com/2020/01/10/designed-clowns-supervised-mo...
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4316117-are-disturbing-inte...