I have an overall impression that Boeing had excessively chooses profit over safety. E.g., the various 737 MAX problems, maybe other ways as well?
If they have, then I'd hope that losing orders gets them to mend their ways.
But maybe my view is overly simplistic.
Today I learned. For context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
It's be nice to know how much of this is Boeing and how much is Boeing's customers. 95/5? 80/20? 50/50?
It's hard to believe that Boeing doesn't want to build a brand-new 737-sized aircraft.
It would make sense they’d try to optimize the bottom line for the short term. That’s what most companies do.
Well, you have time to decide because that's not what TFA is about.
You see the headline "Airliners can't take off in Arizona because it's too hot" but the truth is "737s can't take off in Arizona because it's too hot" (737 struggles to take off under good conditions, it takes more runway to take off than planes with 2x the PAX) People say "flying sucks", but it's more like "flying sucks in a 737" (the reason why your neck locks up just thinking about sitting in a window seat on a 737 is because the 737 has a circular cross section that doesn't fit the human body; a plane smaller than a 737 with a more appropriate cross section feels like riding in a 747)
The Embraer E2-Jet is a smaller aircraft that has a bigger engine with better fuel economy because it's not an obsolete design that can't fit a bigger engine. Then there's the A220, bought by Airbus, that Boeing has no answer to and has chosen to have no answer to. For some reason they got possessed to develop several widebody airliners in a row but when it comes to overhauling the narrowbody planes that are most of the units, most of the flights and most of the social and economic impact of aviation, management has been on strike for decades.
The industry has been trying hard to keep you from riding in a modern narrowbody or regional jet because if they did, you'd be demanding it. Once you try the A220 there is no way you'd ride the same route on a 737 if you had a choice. And the thing is the A220 has lower operating costs... But remember, capitalists pay capital costs but they can make you pay operating costs. So long as everybody is flying inferior aircraft they can refuse to invest and pass higher operating costs on to you.
I find it more comfortable as it's a bit wider, the cabin wall is straighter, and the windows are higher up. Possibly it's also quieter.
I met a guy from EADS once, while it was still called EADS, and I was far too young to understand the complexity of what he was talking about. But from what I understood they really do put a lot into managing their supply chain management (very meta), a team he was in. It was a behemoth of an organisation back then and this is just one guy, but I had a feeling they were very open minded.
The overall approach, where they wanted pilot certification to carry over is certainly a business decision, but I'd bet that pilots and airlines and so on liked it.
Similar thing with this door issue. It's likely enough to be sloppy process, and is going to cost them a mint, not save them money. Sure, you can say that compromising quality is motivated by profit, but that cedes an awful lot of the discussion of the consequences of the poor quality to the people that are pushing to save a bit up front.
Not "cost saving" per se, but definitely about money. MBAs are taught that airlines should use one kind of plane. FAA makes it expensive to certify a new kind of plane. So you get this "737 of Theseus" concept where they virtualized the 737 as a "guest", implemented on a different plane "host", leading to the crashes.
They are currently flying them with the adjusted system and a few hours of additional training, pointing to the implementation rather than the approach.