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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

It's worse than that. Nobody other than Airbus seems to be able to make a good new medium-large jetliner. The C919 isn't very good. The Boeing 737 Max isn't very good, and it's a rework of a 1960s design. Boeing's New Midsize Airplane (the "797") was cancelled two years ago.

Embraer considered building one to extend their line of regional jets, but didn't. Bombardier never got that far. Mitsubishi got as far as building some 90-seat protype aircraft, then gave up in 2003.

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There was immense pressure on Embraer by the US government not to build one. A stupid shortsighted decision by the US.

IMO Bombardier probably eventually could have gotten there too if Boeing hadn't lobbied the US government into making sure nobody bought the C Series. In the end they sold off the entire line to Airbus and it became the A220.

I'd live Embraer to do it. Their E195 is really class. Better comfort than a 737 despite being much smaller.

Airliners want cheap and efficient planes that don't require retraining their staff.

The name Airbus is disturbingly apt.

Let's start a company called Airtrain.

Bombardier's mini-train system for airports is called "Airtrain".

Is retraining the staff really that big a deal?

IIUC, they valued it at 1M per plane [1] and I guess list price of the Max is ~100M [2] so while 1% of the aircrafts value isn't nothing I think it gets completely dwarfed by operational costs.

Not sure how expensive their fuel but I have to imagine over the course of the plane's lifespan that fuel is going to be the primary cost (maybe maintenance / parts would be higher). So if you have to retrain your pilots to fly a plane that requires less fuel per passenger I think you'd come out ahead.

[1]: https://airinsight.com/southwest-and-boeing-the-cost-of-loya...

[2]: http://www.axonaviation.com/commercial-aircraft/aircraft-dat...

I think one of the biggest drivers here is the opportunity cost of taking pilots out of flying schedules to provide training on a new platform, and I imagine this is exacerbated by the ongoing pilot shortage.

Also there are operational efficiencies captured on the maintenance side of things, more streamlined parts inventory management, etc.

Then you also have to rework all your routes and contingencies. If you now fly more than one type of plane you have to make sure you always have a pilot available for right type of plain in a specific location if you ever need to restaff a route.

That’s all to say that adding a new plane platform to an airline is probably akin to a full replatforming of a production app. Sounds simple but there are tons of nuances with the actual execution.

The CEO of Southwest wanted that. They buy only one kind of airplane, B-737 variants. This simplifies repair, parts, training, and staffing. Hence the 737-MAX, and the problems of the 737-MAX.

It can create a lot of logistical problems if your pilots are qualified for different planes. Say your 737 Max pilot gets ill and you've got some 737 normal pilots sitting around but no Max ones. If they are not allowed to fly it and you have to cancel that costs big.

You realize that 10 years ago, you would never write this down, and you would get downvoted by even implying that Airbus is better than Boeing.

Reputation can be killed quite fast now, probably a side effect of social media

Boeing killed it's own reputation, it had nothing to do with any sort of 'media'.

stock prices and dead whistleblowers tend to do that

Two crashes and a blown out window plug helped.

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