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I'm disappointed American Airlines don't buy all Boeing planes, especially given their name. Although Airbus planes do have some American parts on them, they're

I'm disappointed American Airlines don't buy all Boeing planes, especially given their name. Although Airbus planes do have some American parts on them, they're mostly European. Considering they got USD$15 Billion in bailout money from the US Government, and just how good Boeing planes are at a very similar price point, supporting manufacturing in their country of origin seems like the right thing to do.

nbevans 9y ago
AA are just going to buy whatever deal is the best on offer in order to help their market competitiveness i.e. ticket prices.
- byroot 9y ago
  That, and I also heard from an Airbus engineer friend, that airlines try to diversify their planes so that in case a specific plane model is grounded by the FAA (or equivalent) the impact is less severe.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    That's impossible. Edit: As CoreDog said, it would be a cost nightmare. Already airlines would suffer massively if any type is grounded. Ground 737s or A321s? It would be like 9-11 all over again, shut down most every flight of almost every airline. Even grounding a specific version of a type, like 737-700 would be difficult to handle for the airlines that fly them. Alaska would have to cancel nearly 10% of their flights. And it's hard to imagine how the FAA could ground the 737-700 and not the 737-800 at the same time given they are almost identical, which would ground 2/3s of Alaska's fleet. Airlines can consolidate their fleets around a few specific models because it's super cost effective, and the chances of grounding any single model are virtually nil. 737s and A3xx have flown many billions of miles safely since their last incident, it's almost impossible to imagine a problems so urgent and dangerous it would require grounding an entire fleet of planes that flies safely every single day.
    - PhantomGremlin 9y ago
      airlines would suffer massively if any type is grounded It's been done before, but IIRC not recently. Sometimes you have to slap a manufacturer and an operator with a gigantic clue-by-four in order to get them to take things seriously. In 1979, after a crash where 271 people were killed, all DC-10s were grounded for about 5 weeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#American_Airlines_Flight_191 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#Americ...
  - coredog64 9y ago
    Yes and no. The downside is that there's a limit to the number of type ratings your pilots can have. Then there's the operational nightmares that come with having to support all kinds of different airframes. Southwest only flies 737s. In fact, they were so fussy about aircraft that Boeing had to _make_ them take an autopilot on the 737-700s that they bought.
criddell 9y ago
> supporting manufacturing in their country of origin seems like the right thing to do Where do you think Mobile, Alabama is?
- pdelbarba 9y ago
  Realistically though, if you buy IKEA furniture and assemble it at home, it's not "made in my bedroom". The vast majority of the value created in the process of of creating an A321 will be overseas. Assembling it here is just a gimmick, for better or for worse.
lispm 9y ago
How do you think Boeing then will sell a single aircraft in Europe?
UncleSlacky 9y ago
Boeing uses a pretty high proportion of non-US parts in its aircraft too, these days. This was one of the reasons that they had so many teething troubles with the 787.
valuearb 9y ago
Free trade works, you know. If Airbus makes better, cheaper planes, then forcing US carriers to fly Boeing would mean US carriers losing market share to every foreign airline around the globe. Every dollar we spend overseas has to come back to the US, either as purchases of our products or as loans to paper over our government's deficits (Thanks Obama, Bush the Second and Trump!). If you want to know how bad things get when you limit free trade, google Smoot-Hawley.
CPLX 9y ago
For what it's worth they sort of used to. It's US Air that had all the Airbuses prior to the merger.

nbevans 9y ago

AA are just going to buy whatever deal is the best on offer in order to help their market competitiveness i.e. ticket prices.

byroot 9y ago
That, and I also heard from an Airbus engineer friend, that airlines try to diversify their planes so that in case a specific plane model is grounded by the FAA (or equivalent) the impact is less severe.
- valuearb 9y ago
  That's impossible. Edit: As CoreDog said, it would be a cost nightmare. Already airlines would suffer massively if any type is grounded. Ground 737s or A321s? It would be like 9-11 all over again, shut down most every flight of almost every airline. Even grounding a specific version of a type, like 737-700 would be difficult to handle for the airlines that fly them. Alaska would have to cancel nearly 10% of their flights. And it's hard to imagine how the FAA could ground the 737-700 and not the 737-800 at the same time given they are almost identical, which would ground 2/3s of Alaska's fleet. Airlines can consolidate their fleets around a few specific models because it's super cost effective, and the chances of grounding any single model are virtually nil. 737s and A3xx have flown many billions of miles safely since their last incident, it's almost impossible to imagine a problems so urgent and dangerous it would require grounding an entire fleet of planes that flies safely every single day.
  - PhantomGremlin 9y ago
    airlines would suffer massively if any type is grounded It's been done before, but IIRC not recently. Sometimes you have to slap a manufacturer and an operator with a gigantic clue-by-four in order to get them to take things seriously. In 1979, after a crash where 271 people were killed, all DC-10s were grounded for about 5 weeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#American_Airlines_Flight_191 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#Americ...
- coredog64 9y ago
  Yes and no. The downside is that there's a limit to the number of type ratings your pilots can have. Then there's the operational nightmares that come with having to support all kinds of different airframes. Southwest only flies 737s. In fact, they were so fussy about aircraft that Boeing had to _make_ them take an autopilot on the 737-700s that they bought.

criddell 9y ago

> supporting manufacturing in their country of origin seems like the right thing to do Where do you think Mobile, Alabama is?

pdelbarba 9y ago
Realistically though, if you buy IKEA furniture and assemble it at home, it's not "made in my bedroom". The vast majority of the value created in the process of of creating an A321 will be overseas. Assembling it here is just a gimmick, for better or for worse.

lispm 9y ago

How do you think Boeing then will sell a single aircraft in Europe?

UncleSlacky 9y ago

Boeing uses a pretty high proportion of non-US parts in its aircraft too, these days. This was one of the reasons that they had so many teething troubles with the 787.

valuearb 9y ago

Free trade works, you know. If Airbus makes better, cheaper planes, then forcing US carriers to fly Boeing would mean US carriers losing market share to every foreign airline around the globe. Every dollar we spend overseas has to come back to the US, either as purchases of our products or as loans to paper over our government's deficits (Thanks Obama, Bush the Second and Trump!). If you want to know how bad things get when you limit free trade, google Smoot-Hawley.

CPLX 9y ago

For what it's worth they sort of used to. It's US Air that had all the Airbuses prior to the merger.