Boeing to cut 737 Max production beginning in mid-April

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: CNBC

Boeing to cut 737 Max production beginning in mid-April
PUBLISHED AN HOUR AGO UPDATED 26 MIN AGO

KEY POINTS

* Boeing is cutting production of its 737 Max jets by 20 percent from 52 a month to 42 a month.

* CEO Dennis Muilenberg said the company is diverting resources to fixing the software many suspect to have contributed to two fatal crashes since October.

* Boeing's shares fell in after-market trading Friday.

Boeing is cutting production of the 737 Max jets as the company moves quickly to finalize a fix that will get the grounded aircraft flying again.

Boeing's monthly production of the aircraft, involved in two plane crashes since October, is dropping by 20 percent from the current level of 52 a month to 42 a month, the company said Friday.

"We're adjusting the 737 production system temporarily to accommodate the pause in MAX deliveries, allowing us to prioritize additional resources to focus on software certification and returning the MAX to flight," Boeing Chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement announcing the rate cut. Muilenburg said the aerospace giant is already working with suppliers to, "minimize operational disruption and financial impact of the production rate change."

The production cut is likely to weigh on shares of Boeing which have held up relatively well after initially dropping more than 10% in mid-March following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max-8. It was the second crash of a 737 Max in the last six months and lead countries around the world to ground the airplane or ban it from flying in their airspace.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/boeing-slows-737-max-production-beginning-in-mid-april.html

[SunSeeker]

1. What responsible airline would buy one of these things?

I can't believe Boeing is still producing them.

[madaboutharry]

2. They should just cut their losses and scrap the production all together.

The public is going to resist getting on this plane. It is going to end up like the Corvair, which Ralph Nader lambasted in his book Unsafe at any Speed, and the Pinto.

[Sherman A1]

5. Agreed

I was thinking more along the lines of the de Havilland Comet

The de Havilland DH 106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland at its Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried in the wing roots, a pressurised cabin, and large square windows. For the era, it offered a relatively quiet, comfortable passenger cabin and was commercially promising at its debut in 1952.

However, within a year of entering airline service, problems started to emerge, with three Comets lost within twelve months in highly publicised accidents, after suffering catastrophic in-flight break-ups. Two of these were found to be caused by structural failure resulting from metal fatigue in the airframe, a phenomenon not fully understood at the time. The other one was due to overstressing of the airframe during flight through severe weather. The Comet was withdrawn from service and extensively tested. Design and construction flaws, including improper riveting and dangerous concentrations of stress around some of the square windows, were ultimately identified. As a result, the Comet was extensively redesigned, with oval windows, structural reinforcements and other changes. Rival manufacturers meanwhile heeded the lessons learned from the Comet while developing their own aircraft.

Although sales never fully recovered, the improved Comet 2 and the prototype Comet 3 culminated in the redesigned Comet 4 series which debuted in 1958 and had a productive career of over 30 years. The Comet was also adapted for a variety of military roles such as VIP, medical and passenger transport, as well as surveillance. The most extensive modification resulted in a specialised maritime patrol variant, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, which remained in service with the Royal Air Force until 2011, over 60 years after the Comet's first flight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet#Accidents_and_incidents

[Initech]

15. Or they could, I don't know, spend the money and properly train pilots on how to use these planes.

That was a huge factor in the disasters in India and Africa was that they didn't spend the money on properly training pilots on how to handle the flight software. If they had done that, those two disasters probably could have been prevented.

[dem4decades]

3. I don't want to ever fly on one of those. I don't believe it's the software.

I think it's a bad design.

[Sherman A1]

4. You are correct

it is a bad design which the software was to overcome. Apparently it doesn't do a very good job of that.

[still_one]

8. I don't agree that it is necesarily a bad design, though they definitely have issues, and I believe

they will solve those issues.

Problem is what you just said, "you don't ever want to fly on them"

and I suspect a lot of people feel that way, and it is hard for me to see how airlines are going to be chomping on the bit buy them.

They have lost a lot of credibility with this, and just saying they fixed the problem, isn't going to solve that.

I think as others have mentioned, it might be better if they cut their loses, and discontinue it

[Sgent]

9. I think the aircraft could be returned to service

fairly easily.

Remove the MCAS. Train pilots on the new airfoil / envelope rather than trying to make it fly like a 737NG. The MCAS was only intended to go into effect in one very particular part of flight which is unusual anyway -- hard turns during a circle to land or similar.

That will cost them as they lose commonality with pilot training, but its a safe (if antiquated) design.

Note: That assumes that the 737NG design is not found deficient. There are some rumblings that at least the ET flight may have been partially caused by a heretofore latent defect / design flaw with the manual trim cable.

[still_one]

10. Barring any major design flaw as you mentioned, I think it will be very difficult to convince a lot

of folks to fly them. The way this whole situation was handled from the start contributed to this loss of confidence, and I am not sure they can regain the trust they lost in this.

[yaesu]

6. I've heard that tRumps government shutdown added to the problem that boeing is going through

as paperwork & such weren't being done in a timely matter at the FAA pertaining to tests or something like that.

[SFnomad]

12. After the crash in Indonesia, I believe Boeing figured out what was wrong and were trying to certify

a fix. That certification was delayed because of the shut-down.

What I don't understand is, if they had figured out that the MCAS caused the problems because of faulty readings, why didn't they make the optional backup instruments mandatory? The programming would still need to be fixed, but that would have been another band-aid, for the MCAS band-aid. But it would have meant that the situation, while not totally fixed, would have been an improvement.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. I'm sure there will be found multiple issues contributing to these crashes

I think a lot of the basic fault probably begins with Boeing but maybe not as much as some folks seem to think.

[Aussie105]

14. Thoughts and prayers are meaningless . . .

"We at Boeing are sorry for the lives lost in the recent 737 MAX accidents," said Boeing's chief executive Dennis Muilenburg in a statement in response to the report. "These tragedies continue to weigh heavily on our hearts and minds, and we extend our sympathies to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302."

Not casting shade on the tragedy, but the question now needs to be . . .how in God's name did this problem get through Boeing's test procedures? Shortcuts, too much of a rush? And will a 'fix' be reliable?

Boeing needs to do some major internal soul searching to find out why they have let things go bad like this. And be prepared for some court cases for compensation from people who have lost relatives and airlines that have lost revenue.