Boeing’s on a streak...

Well, now comes the inevitable app....

www.avweb.com

Booking Tool Allows Passengers To Opt Out Of Boeing 737 MAX Aircraft - AVweb

With whistleblower revelations, and amassing safety incidents plaguing Boeing’s aircraft fleet, some travelers are taking the “If its Boeing, I’m not going” phrase to heart. Alternative Airlines, a booking tool, now allows anxious travelers to seek out routes and carriers that do not use the...
www.avweb.com www.avweb.com
 
Half Fast said:
Well, now comes the inevitable app....
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I always found this type of mentality by the flying public the most interesting. Of all the planes flying which ones are getting the most hands-on attention right now? And which ones are not? After the DC-10 in O'Hare no one wanted to fly 10s so I enjoyed free cabin upgrades and cheaper tickets for a spell until things return to more normal.
 
The aircraft most likely to have a serious inflight issue is the Airbus A329/321 NEO. The engine and gear box assembly should probably be grounded. They have imposed massive inspection and overhual requirements but the problems are getting worse.
 
Jeff767 said:
The aircraft most likely to have a serious inflight issue is the Airbus A329/321 NEO. The engine and gear box assembly should probably be grounded. They have imposed massive inspection and overhual requirements but the problems are getting worse.
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I learned a long time ago, When the heat’s on somebody else, it’s not on you.
 
Well, at least something is happening...also, head of commercial airlines div, Stan Deal is out immediately, and board chairman to step down at end of year. I don't want to know how many millions of dollars in golden parachutes are going out with these folks...

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AviationObserver said:
Well, at least something is happening...also, head of commercial airlines div, Stan Deal is out immediately, and board chairman to step down at end of year. I don't want to know how many millions of dollars in golden parachutes are going out with these folks...

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We'll see. Who goes out (and they all should) is less important than who comes in.
 
Was discussing the management shakeup with a friend recently who suggested it was more about them being late on deliveries, and the bottom line than it was about the safety culture...despite public statements to the contrary.

Well, today I saw this story at PJ Media, which would seem to add some validity to this idea. This is all conjecture of course, so make of it what you will...

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pjmedia.com

It's a Bloodbath at Boeing

pjmedia.com pjmedia.com
 
By putting in a finance person (bean counter, if you will) it could make the changes happen more easily if Ms. Pope was able to grasp the nature of the issues at hand. By that I mean that she can speak the finance language to explain the changes to the other finance people but at the same time disarm the possible resistance of "They're only doing <that> because they're an engineer person".

As mentioned above, "Finance type" vs "Engineer type" is too simplistic of a metric to determine how well a person will do at leadership.

Here's hoping Ms. Pope will be able to navigate the mess and get Boeing back to where it needs to be.
 
The problem at Boeing isn’t just “who will make the best CEO.” Boeing needs a strong engineering organization with leadership that’s respected by the CEO. A bean-counter CEO could be fine IF AND ONLY IF there is a strong CTO or company CE who reports only to the CEO, has the guts to stand up and speak out, and can make engineering decisions stick.

The problem isn’t so much a finance CEO as it is a CEO who is willing to weaken an engineering organization and override its decisions without truly understanding the ramifications and without that in-the-gut sense of responsibility that a good engineer has.
 
People talk about turning around companies all the time. Maybe just me, but I don't see that happening very often. It's much easier and faster to take something that works and break it, than to take something broken and fix it, across many different disciplines. From running a company to building an airplane to baking a cake. Sometimes it's just simpler to start from scratch.
 
Albany Tom said:
People talk about turning around companies all the time. Maybe just me, but I don't see that happening very often. It's much easier and faster to take something that works and break it, than to take something broken and fix it, across many different disciplines. From running a company to building an airplane to baking a cake. Sometimes it's just simpler to start from scratch.
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It’s rare, I agree, but it can happen. Iacocca and Chrysler might be an example (Iacocca was an engineer, BTW ;) ). Even when possible, it may take longer than stockholders’ patience will allow, and then it’s a prime target for acquisition.
 
Half Fast said:
It’s rare, I agree, but it can happen. Iacocca and Chrysler might be an example (Iacocca was an engineer, BTW ;) ). Even when possible, it may take longer than stockholders’ patience will allow, and then it’s a prime target for acquisition.
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I’m curious what it would look like if they divested the airline division. From the lay person perspective it seems the current leadership is really focused on the military stuff and the airline business is just on autopilot.

Without knowing anything it seems like a reasonable way to rebuild the airline side.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I’m curious what it would look like if they divested the airline division. From the lay person perspective it seems the current leadership is really focused on the military stuff and the airline business is just on autopilot.

Without knowing anything it seems like a reasonable way to rebuild the airline side.
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Beats me.

Prior to the MAX debacle, about half of their revenue was from the airline business and I think about a third from defense/aerospace contracts. That’s shifted in recent years as their airliner sales have declined. I’m not sure the airliner business would look attractive to a buyer these days, unless it goes for a fire sale price (and it might).
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I’m curious what it would look like if they divested the airline division. From the lay person perspective it seems the current leadership is really focused on the military stuff and the airline business is just on autopilot.
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Maybe. Spirit was spun off and that didn't work out so well. Now I think I read that they are going to pull Spirit back into the fold.

The commercial business could be similarly spun off as a whole. No purchaser required, just spin it off as a separate business. That could make sense if there were factors on the DoD side exerting pressure on the commercial side to scrimp on safety.

But, I'm not a business person and that's about as far as my brain can ride that thought train...hah, that rhymes :)
 
StraightnLevel said:
This going to sound really harsh, but:

My experience is that it's easier for an engineer to learn finance than it is for a finance person to learn engineering; this is why so many high-level executives are from the engineering field. What engineers often lack is inter-personal skills.
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X3 Skier said:
I’m always interested to read Solutions for major problems running a company from folks who haven’t done so before.
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Dude, listen. The only quarterbacking I can do is armchair quarterbacking.
 
Jeff767 said:
The aircraft most likely to have a serious inflight issue is the Airbus A329/321 NEO. The engine and gear box assembly should probably be grounded. They have imposed massive inspection and overhual requirements but the problems are getting worse.
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first off, there is no such thing as a A329. second, there are three different engine choices for the neo and only one has an issue. the carrier affect most is spirit. american has only leap 1a engines on their neos's so they have zero aircraft effected.
 
Over my career in aerospace, I got to see a bit of the "old Boeing" and the "new Boeing", and even a bit of "old v new Boeing". I was mostly on the Defense side, but there was a story folks liked to tell (even though it wasn't quite right) about the 777, which was arguably the last product of the "old Boeing". Here's the story, with corrections afterward:

At the commit decision for the 777 in October 1990 (which is analogous to the DoD Preliminary Design Review), the McDonnell Douglas C-17 was in flight test at Edwards. When the first 777 was delivered to United Airlines in May 1995, the C-17 was...

...still in flight test at Edwards.

Fun story, and almost true. The dates on the triple seven are right, but there's a bit of exaggeration on the C-17. The C-17 had its PDR in 1985, but didn't enter flight test until September 1991, over a year late. So it was SUPPOSED to be in flight test at the 777 commit time. The C-17 also hit IOC (Initial Operational Capability, kinda the same as "in service", and it was apparently "kinda" an IOC) in January of 1995, but as I understand it, there was still testing at Edwards.

Regardless, the bottom line was that the 777 was developed and delivered in less than half the time as the C-17, and met a far larger fraction of its requirements. And what I saw was the "old Boeing", in Puget Sound, completely mobilized around the 777 development and flight test. Yeah, there was stuff that didn't go right, and no one will really say how close to on budget they were, but the 777 was a quality airplane, on time. This kind of commitment and mobilization just didn't happen with the 87, and likely won't ever happen again with Boeing. Alan Mulally ran the 777 program - he's the guy that later went and fixed Ford. Many folks think of this as the last solid Boeing program. The C-17 program, which did not meet a large fraction of the original requirements, was way over budget, and way behind schedule, and was run by Dave Swain and later Harry Stonecipher.

Flash forward a few years and there's a merger, and an evolution of the company. Ultimately, the folks who had previously excelled (Mulally and others) were pushed out, and Swain and Stonecipher and their mediocre pals ended up running things. A sad tale.

--Tony

PS - As an old Puget Sound Boeing guy, I do feel the need to point something out: some of the most effective engineering-focused program managers that I saw were heritage-McDonnell Douglas, and some of the worst business-school pablum-spewing "leaders" were heritage-Boeing, starting with Phil Condit - so the story is a bit more complex than "McDonnel Douglas ruined Boeing".
 
TonyG said:
Over my career in aerospace, I got to see a bit of the "old Boeing" and the "new Boeing", and even a bit of "old v new Boeing". I was mostly on the Defense side, but there was a story folks liked to tell (even though it wasn't quite right) about the 777, which was arguably the last product of the "old Boeing". Here's the story, with corrections afterward:

At the commit decision for the 777 in October 1990 (which is analogous to the DoD Preliminary Design Review), the McDonnell Douglas C-17 was in flight test at Edwards. When the first 777 was delivered to United Airlines in May 1995, the C-17 was...

...still in flight test at Edwards.

Fun story, and almost true. The dates on the triple seven are right, but there's a bit of exaggeration on the C-17. The C-17 had its PDR in 1985, but didn't enter flight test until September 1991, over a year late. So it was SUPPOSED to be in flight test at the 777 commit time. The C-17 also hit IOC (Initial Operational Capability, kinda the same as "in service", and it was apparently "kinda" an IOC) in January of 1995, but as I understand it, there was still testing at Edwards.

Regardless, the bottom line was that the 777 was developed and delivered in less than half the time as the C-17, and met a far larger fraction of its requirements. And what I saw was the "old Boeing", in Puget Sound, completely mobilized around the 777 development and flight test. Yeah, there was stuff that didn't go right, and no one will really say how close to on budget they were, but the 777 was a quality airplane, on time. This kind of commitment and mobilization just didn't happen with the 87, and likely won't ever happen again with Boeing. Alan Mulally ran the 777 program - he's the guy that later went and fixed Ford. Many folks think of this as the last solid Boeing program. The C-17 program, which did not meet a large fraction of the original requirements, was way over budget, and way behind schedule, and was run by Dave Swain and later Harry Stonecipher.

Flash forward a few years and there's a merger, and an evolution of the company. Ultimately, the folks who had previously excelled (Mulally and others) were pushed out, and Swain and Stonecipher and their mediocre pals ended up running things. A sad tale.

--Tony

PS - As an old Puget Sound Boeing guy, I do feel the need to point something out: some of the most effective engineering-focused program managers that I saw were heritage-McDonnell Douglas, and some of the worst business-school pablum-spewing "leaders" were heritage-Boeing, starting with Phil Condit - so the story is a bit more complex than "McDonnel Douglas ruined Boeing".
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After Swain et al and the USAF Program Director et al were jettisoned along with a Directive from DoD to both sets of leadership to “fix it or We’ll forget it “, things were fixed fairly directly. The combination of My direct boss, the new USAF Program Dierector B/G Ron Kadish and the new McD Program Director Don Kozlowski from MacAir figured out what could be done, what was stupid and shouldn’t be done and got on with it. The SecDef telling Stonechiper to keep his GD Nose out of it was of infinite help. In the end, the Program delivered a pretty effective piece of equipment.

Programs are my bag. Fixing companies sure as h*** isn’t. “A man’s gots to know his limitations”.
 
Cultural entropy is a thing. Takes a long to build good culture, and very little to destroy it. I remember poaching employees decades ago from Boeing - because we wanted serious engineers who didn’t cut corners and understood what it took to be the best.
 
unsafervguy said:
first off, there is no such thing as a A329. second, there are three different engine choices for the neo and only one has an issue. the carrier affect most is spirit. american has only leap 1a engines on their neos's so they have zero aircraft effected.
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I would spend a bit of time reading up on the engine. It has lots of problems beyond the contaminated turbine section.
Here are a few and on 22 Mar the FAA indicated it may require additional rotor replacement on many engines.

  1. Combustion chamber failures, 25% degradation in coastal environments
  2. Number 3 bearing failures
  3. Main Gear Box (MGB) failures
  4. The rotor issue amended almost as we speak requires the following. At the same time, the directive will require airlines to conduct accelerated replacements of HPC IBR–7, HPC IBR–8, HPC rear hub, HPT 1st-stage hub, HPT 1st-stage air seal, HPT 1st-stage blade retaining plate, HPT 2nd-stage hub, HPT 2nd-stage blade retaining plate, and HPT 2nd-stage rear seal.
 
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The sight of Bill Boeing was a familiar one on the factory floor. His office was in the building next to the converted boatyard where workers lathed the wood, sewed the fabric wings, and fixed the control wires of the Boeing Model C airplane. there is no authority except facts. facts are obtained by accurate observation read a plaque affixed outside the door. And what could need closer observation than the process of his aircraft being built? One day in 1916, Boeing spotted an imperfectly cut wing rib, dropped it to the floor, and slowly stomped it to bits. “I, for one, will close up shop rather than send out work of this kind,” he declared.
__

The past 30 years may well be remembered as a dark age of U.S. manufacturing. Boeing’s decline illustrates everything that went wrong to bring us here. Fortunately, it also offers a lesson in how to get back out.

Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing
 
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Piperonca said:
The sight of Bill Boeing was a familiar one on the factory floor. His office was in the building next to the converted boatyard where workers lathed the wood, sewed the fabric wings, and fixed the control wires of the Boeing Model C airplane. there is no authority except facts. facts are obtained by accurate observation read a plaque affixed outside the door. And what could need closer observation than the process of his aircraft being built? One day in 1916, Boeing spotted an imperfectly cut wing rib, dropped it to the floor, and slowly stomped it to bits. “I, for one, will close up shop rather than send out work of this kind,” he declared.
__

The past 30 years may well be remembered as a dark age of U.S. manufacturing. Boeing’s decline illustrates everything that went wrong to bring us here. Fortunately, it also offers a lesson in how to get back out.

Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing
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The legacy of Jack Welch continues.
 
Half Fast said:
The legacy of Jack Welch continues.
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Interested to see who the next CEO will be. Morbid curiosity more than anything.

Say what you want about Elon Musk; he spent personal time in his factories. Decent results, especially SpaceX.
 
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Every day it just becomes a bit sadder.....

finance.yahoo.com

FAA probes union claims Boeing retaliated against two engineers in 2022

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday it is investigating a union's claims that Boeing retaliated against two employees who in 2022 insisted the planemaker re-evaluate prior engineering work on 777 and 787 jets. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees...
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com

www.seattletimes.com

Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

Boeing's engineering union alleges management retaliated against two engineers overseeing design work on behalf of the FAA.
www.seattletimes.com www.seattletimes.com

After the FAA backed the engineers about how the work should be performed and the dispute was settled, in mid-2023 Boeing gave both men negative performance reviews, which cuts pay raises and promotion prospects.​
​
The two “did the right thing and stuck to their guns despite heavy pressure from Boeing, and then got hit with career-damaging performance reviews,” said Rich Plunkett, the union’s director of strategic development. “This helps show why Boeing doesn’t have a healthy safety culture.”​
 
Meanwhile, Boeing executive interviews have hit a rough patch.

 
StraightnLevel said:
.....and another one. Of course the plane is 34 years old, but that doesn't change the headline.

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Hengelo said:
File this under "truth is stranger than fiction"

nypost.com

Exclusive | Missing emergency slide that fell off Delta flight found — washed up in front of house of lawyer whose firm is suing Boeing

Jake Bissell-Linsk — a New York attorney whose firm filed a lawsuit against Boeing following the Alaska Airlines door blowout in January — told The Post he got a surprise on Sunday arou…
nypost.com nypost.com
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The slide as a dropped object puzzles me. In the E-3 (707 airframe), the slide is part of the door, and there’s a bar that has to be manually attached to the floor once the door is closed. Once the door is closed, the entire assembly is surrounded by airframe.

How a slide turns into a dropped object seems like a procedural error or inadvertent deployment that should have been noticed at pushback or somewhere along taxi. I have a hard time seeing this as a manufacturing defect.
 
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