5 ms·
2019 has been a true _annus horribilis_ for Boeing.
by mikl 7y ago
2019 has been a true _annus horribilis_ for Boeing.
- kakwa_ 7y agoWell, engin failures are not exactly the rarest of occurrences. It's just that given the context, every stories about Boeing will gain quite a bit of traction. It's probably deserved given how bad the company have messed-up, but let not overreact.
- LeonM 7y agoThe title of the article should be Metal shards of Rolls-Royce Trend 1000 engine rain down on people below. It has very little to do with Boeing in this case. But blaming Boeing in the title gets you more clicks, and clicks equals money for journalism.
- A2017U1 7y agoSo why does Boeing end up paying compensation in court? Airplane parts are intertwined believe it or not, their engineers spend years working together. May as well start 26 shell companies named BoeingA to BoeingZ and pretend it was all someone else's fault.
- mikl 7y agoIf a Tesla has a fatal accident because of some 3rd party component, the headlines will blame Tesla, too. Boeing is not free of responsibility here, they chose to sell said engines as an option on their planes. They have worked together with Rolls Royce to integrate their engines with their plane. In theory, engine problems could even be caused by Boeing's software mismanaging the engines.
- Xixi 7y agoThe comparison with Tesla is not valid: when you buy a Tesla, you buy a Tesla from Tesla. When you buy a Boeing 787, you chose the engines (GE or Rolls Royce) and buy them directly from the engine maker. You would also sign a maintenance/support contract with the engine maker directly. It is not rare for plane contracts and engine contracts to not be signed simultaneously: the engine maker might be decided months after the contract for the 787 is firmed. Aircraft engines do not qualify as "some 3rd party component". A slightly better comparison (but not perfect) would be if you buy a server from Dell with an Intel microprocessor, and there's an issue with that Intel chip: will you blame Intel or Dell? After all you could have picked a Dell server with an AMD processor.
- apexalpha 7y agoAre you telling me airlines have to order and directly buy the engines themselves? Surely not?
- Xixi 7y agoWhy wouldn't they? Engines are by far the most expensive and critical parts of an airliner. So airlines issue RFPs to engine makers to extract the best possible price/conditions. The result of these RFPs is usually a matter of public announcement, see for instance the choice of CFM (a joint venture between GE and Safran) to power IndiGo A320NEO: https://www.ft.com/content/d1c20f9e-9119-11e9-aea1-2b1d33ac3271 https://www.ft.com/content/d1c20f9e-9119-11e9-aea1-2b1d33ac3.... The contract is signed directly between the airline and the engine maker. Of course the engines are installed by the OEM (Boeing, Airbus, etc.), as otherwise delivering the plane would be problematic to say the least... EDIT: another, more relevant example: Norwegian ordered 19 Boeing 787-9 in October 2015, and selected Rolls-Royce to power them in February 2016 (https://atwonline.com/engines/norwegian-selects-rolls-royce-engines-787s https://atwonline.com/engines/norwegian-selects-rolls-royce-...)
- kayfox 7y agoThe engines need to be overhauled and sometimes replaced several times over an aircraft's lifetime, so they are often swapped out and overhauled and then installed on another aircraft. Not only that, but some injection of new engines into the pool is needed. So airlines sign big contracts with engine manufacturers for new engines, parts, supplies, training, etc. This also happens even with small single engine airplanes, those engines need overhauls every so many thousand hours, so one option is to trade in your old engine for a refurbished one instead of overhauling and keeping the same engine. For some larger fleets companies have contracts with engineer manufacturers or service centers for this.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoThis failure is likely the engine, which is not Boeing's fault. The engines have made it a bad year for Norwegian and other 787 customers, who have had to cut back their schedules to accommodate unplanned engine maintenance. And of course it's been a terrible 18 months for Rolls-Royce.