FAA and Congress apparently do not trust Boeing anymore

[jis]

Looks like Boeing is still at it working hard for the famous slogan to change to "If it is Boeing I ain't going" or some such...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/business/faa-probe-boeing/index.html
FAA may have actually forced a significant delay in the delivery of 787s until they are satisfied that they have all been inspected to their satisfaction. Apparently all deliveries have now been pushed back to October and beyond possibly.

Meanwhile Congress is likely about to get in the act to fix Boeing's and FAA's roles significantly in an attempt to keep Boeing from destroying itself.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...ght-reform-in-wake-of-boeing-737-max-crashes/

 

[Dakota 400]

Looks like Boeing is still at it working hard for the famous slogan to change to "If it is Boeing I ain't going" or some such...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/business/faa-probe-boeing/index.html
FAA may have actually forced a significant delay in the delivery of 787s until they are satisfied that they have all been inspected to their satisfaction. Apparently all deliveries have now been pushed back to October and beyond possibly.

Meanwhile Congress is likely about to get in the act to fix Boeing's and FAA's roles significantly in an attempt to keep Boeing from destroying itself.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...ght-reform-in-wake-of-boeing-737-max-crashes/

For those of us who will fly on Boeing aircraft in the future, this is good news.

I am going to continue to vote my proxies for Boeing against any of the holdovers from the Company's Officers and Board that, I am sure, did an excellent job of cashing their pay checks and watching their options increase in their portfolio, but failed in their jobs to which they were elected.

 

[Ziv]

My extended family have worked for Boeing for more than 60 years. And we have always been proud of how well engineered nearly every Boeing product has been. Until approximately the time that Boeing's leadership team decided that Boeing was not an American corporation but a multi-national one, and that therefore the company HQ should be in Chicago instead of in Seattle. Which makes no sense.
And then the shortcomings with regards to design and build quality started to surface. One hit after another, and now the 787 and the KC-46 and the Starliner are the three worst examples but they are far from being the only problems. Boeing's leadership is destroying the goose that laid the golden egg. And they will retire with huge golden parachutes.

 

[Dakota 400]

Until approximately the time that Boeing's leadership team decided that Boeing was not an American corporation but a multi-national one, and that therefore the company HQ should be in Chicago instead of in Seattle. Which makes no sense.
And then the shortcomings with regards to design and build quality started to surface.

As a shareholder, that is the time when I also began to have concerns. The decision to change corporate HQ from Seattle to Chicago ranks as one of the worst corporate decisions of which I am aware.

 

[neroden]

The leadership who destroyed Boeing came from McDonnell Douglas. Inverse takeover. :-(

 

[Dakota 400]

The leadership who destroyed Boeing came from McDonnell Douglas. Inverse takeover. :-(

I didn't realize this. Wasn't McDonnell Douglas headquartered in St. Louis? If so, it's a wonder that they didn't want to move Boeing HQ to St. Louis.

 

[west point]

McDonnel Douglas was already a combination. Does this screw up remind any one the PC or UP + MP + SP mess up as well. It seems that the worse management is what survives. Maybe because the capable persons are trying to get the companies working correctly and do not pay attention to the back stabbing that is going on ?

One backstabber can undo at least 5 capable.

 

[MARC Rider]

McDonnel Douglas was already a combination. Does this screw up remind any one the PC or UP + MP + SP mess up as well. It seems that the worse management is what survives. Maybe because the capable persons are trying to get the companies working correctly and do not pay attention to the back stabbing that is going on ?

One backstabber can undo at least 5 capable.

Don't forget basic structural issues regarding corporate America during this period: The weakening of unions, the decrease of government regulation, the decrease in taxes, cultural trends glorifying greed, the attitude (backed by force of the law) among those running corporations that the only stakeholders who matter are the well-connected shareholders (and the managers who skim the cream off the top.)

I suspect that Boeing's problems are not unique. It's just that most companies who lower the quality of their products don't have products that can fall out of the sky and kill a couple hundred people at one go.

 

[jis]

Here is an interesting article I found in a current thread in airliners.net about the recent PBS Frontline episode on Boeing and its 737Max misadventures. This mentions the effect of Boeing - McDonnell Douglas merger among other things, specifically focusiing on across the board erosion of the safety culture that Boeing was famous for. Indeed they were working hard towards a new possible slogan of "If it's Boeing I ain't going" apparently. So far it has culminated in the 737MAX. Some expect a 777X to be next. They moved the Chief Engineer of 737MAX to be the Chief Engineer of 777X. Go figure. Revolving doors of incompetence protected institutionally to preserve the errr culture?

https://newrepublic.com/article/154...-air-ethiopian-airlines-managerial-revolution
The airliner.net thread is at:

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1464889

 

[flitcraft]

My extended family have worked for Boeing for more than 60 years. And we have always been proud of how well engineered nearly every Boeing product has been. Until approximately the time that Boeing's leadership team decided that Boeing was not an American corporation but a multi-national one, and that therefore the company HQ should be in Chicago instead of in Seattle. Which makes no sense.

My husband was a Boeing engineer for nearly 40 years and personally saw the undermining of Boeing's traditional safety-first culture after the Boeing merger with McDonnell-Douglas. He saw the move to Chicago as one intended to prevent Seattle area employees from publicly protesting at Boeing headquarters when Boeing's new management systematically tried to to undermine the unions at Boeing, eliminate jobs, and pressure employees to cut corners in the name of 'shareholder value.' All of which happened. And no one in Chicago cared, because they didn't have to confront the anger and dismay of the affected workers.

 

[Dakota 400]

So far it has culminated in the 737MAX. Some expect a 777X to be next. They moved the Chief Engineer of 737MAX to be the Chief Engineer of 777X. Go figure. Revolving doors of incompetence protected institutionally to preserve the errr culture?

Such a corporate move is idiotic. Give whomever a buyout package and get the heck out of the company!

 

[sttom]

I watch this channel on YouTube for aviation news, he has a lot of work to do to stay on top of just what Boeing is doing.

As someone who flies on occasion, I am still unwilling to fly in a 737 MAX and hesitant to fly in a Boeing plane in general with all the issues that are coming out of the wood work with them. After flying on Frontier on an A320, I will say that Airbus makes the better aircraft even through Frontier uses the same seats as schools. I am only slightly kidding about that.

 

[Ryan]

As was referenced in the Empire Builder thread, flying is still significantly safer than taking the train even in a world populated by Boeing aircraft. Not flying because of the safety involved isn’t a decision grounded in logic.

 

[sttom]

Prohibition and hesitant are not the same thing. The issue with the 737 MAX is more than the result of an airline doing shoddy maintenance, a pilot being inebriated or other causes of a plane crashing. It crashed due to a design choice that Boeing made because it wanted to keep cashing in on the 737. Avoiding them really isn't difficult since most airlines still show what is the type of aircraft assigned to the route. I know someone is going to say "but sometimes the plane is swapped!" Yeah that can happen, and it's not like a 737 MAX is the only other alternative. Given that the FAA is finally catching onto Boeing's misdeeds and the main airlines buying more A320s as of late, why should I trust Boeing? The government doesn't and they used to be as close to bedfellows as the government and a private company can be without accusations of legal impropriety. And this is beyond the airlines squinting suspiciously at Boeing.

 

[Dakota 400]

I will say that Airbus makes the better aircraft

I am unqualified to say that Airbus makes a better aircraft. But, I can say that the A 330 is a more comfortable aircraft for the passenger than a 757 or 767. It is at least as comfortable as the 777. I have not flown on a 787 so I can't compare that plane with an A 330.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...ot-indicted-fraud-us-justice-dept-2021-10-14/
https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...ith-new-defect-787-dreamliner-wsj-2021-10-14/

 

[Dakota 400]

https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...ot-indicted-fraud-us-justice-dept-2021-10-14/
https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...ith-new-defect-787-dreamliner-wsj-2021-10-14/

Empty tequila bottles found among the debris that was left behind by workers. Regarding the defective titanium parts: purchased from an Italian company who had a subcontractor that made them and that subcontractor is under scrutiny. Reading these two articles makes one question if I ever want to fly on a Boeing plane again.

How does one get rid of corporate rot?

 

[neroden]

How does one get rid of corporate rot?

There are really only two solutions. One is Chapter 7 bankruptcy and dissolving the company. (That is the "creative destruction" of capitalism.)

The other is extensive government regulation and control, to the point of government being able to fire disqualify, and replace corporate officials -- powers every state government still has on paper, but which in the the US was abandoned in the late 19th century under pressure from ultrarich crooks, mostly. Of course you need a government not controlled by ultrarich crooks to do that one.