“It’s as if I’m watching a troubled child” is how Captain Dennis Tajer describes flying a Boeing 737 Max.
“The culture at Boeing has been toxic to trust for over a decade now,” (Adam Dickson, a former senior manager at Boeing) says.
Five years ago Boeing faced one of the biggest scandals in its history, after two brand new 737 Max planes were lost in almost identical accidents that cost 346 lives.
The cause was flawed flight control software, details of which it was accused of deliberately concealing from regulators.
Meanwhile, further evidence of how production problems could endanger safety emerged this week.
The FAA warned that improperly installed wiring bundles on 737 Max planes could become damaged, leading to controls on the wings deploying unexpectedly, and making the aircraft start to roll.
If not addressed, it said, this “could result in loss of control of the airplane”. Hundreds of planes already in service will have to be checked as a result.
Their market cap is comparable, but that’s after Boeing’s stock took a hit. About a 50% cut over the last 5 years. Airbus’ stock is slightly higher than it was 5 years ago.
Remember that Boeing is all over the military market on top of their civilian programs. Airbus does do a few conversions of their civilian aircraft for military use (transport and aerial refueling, mostly), but it’s not a huge part of their revenue. Boeing does that stuff (the hump in the 747, in particular, has led to some specialized uses), plus more specialized designs. They’re still cranking out new versions of the F-15, for example. In fact, military stuff is the largest part of Boeing’s revenue.
Sure but the context of the comment I replied to was that many airlines don’t have a choice but to buy aircraft from Boeing because Airbus is much smaller and therefore unable to service the required orders. In actual fact they deliver nearly an equivalent number of (civilian) aircraft over 10 years from 2007-2016 and Airbus has been delivering more aircraft per year recently. If everyone suddenly only ordered with Airbus then sure it would create a supply bottleneck but that’s not because Airbus is a smaller company.