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United orders 50 new Airbus long-range jets to replace Boeing 757s

355 points by nolok 7y ago

arnon 7y ago
Mostly, this proves that the 737 MAX isn't a valid alternative to the 757. This goes against Boeing's official stance. The A321 (and the 757) is a lot more flexible, can carry more cargo, and has better performance.
- kitteh 7y ago
  Pilots have been saying this for a long time. But it started with anger towards the constant expansion of the 737 (the 900 has some additional limits that hit hard when icing conditions in some places like Denver). The 757 was the sports car of airliners but with a high price tag (and it never really displaced the 727). As for the A321...it had a rocky start.
- cdibona 7y ago
  The Max wasn't supposed to replace the 757 except in a few niche cases. As mentioned in the article, the nma launch delay being put off to 2020 lost Boeing this contract.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    Boeing doesn't really have anything to replace the 757 with except the -MAX at this point.
- MichaelApproved 7y ago
  Well, the 737 MAX isn’t a valid alternative to anything while it’s grounded. Maybe the concept of the MAX being a replacement was valid but, based on Boeing’s blundering development of the plane, can you really fault anyone for avoiding it? Will the MAX fly again? Will it crash again? Will passengers trust it again? Too many unknown questions make it hard to plan ahead.
  - nolok 7y ago
    Actually, it's really not. United has already bought MAXes to replace other planes, but to replace their 757 they waited Boeing new annoncement that was supposed to be this year (except Boeing delayed it to next year a few months ago).
  - FabHK 7y ago
    It just occurred to me that Boeing has been quite successful with branding ("Dreamliner", "MAX"), but maybe wishes it hadn't been... Everyone now knows that MAX is bad, but how many people can tell the difference between a 737-8 and a 737-800?
    - mrpippy 7y ago
      Boeing still may rebrand the plane and stop calling it the MAX, as you say it was only ever a marketing name. The plane is certified as the “737-8”, “737-9”, etc.
- rburhum 7y ago
  It is not that. It is that regardless if the plane is "fixed" or not, many frequent travelers will refuse to fly on a 737 MAX from now on. Last year I took 73 flights. At least three of those were on a MAX. I profusely refuse to get on one of those, regardless if they are fixed or not.
  - tw04 7y ago
    I flew about the same, fortunately never on a MAX. That being said I'm in the same boat, you couldn't pay me enough money to take a ride on a plane that the pilot literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly. Maybe I'm just blissfully ignorant to how bad all the planes in the air are... but I feel like pilots would be screaming bloody murder if they were all as bad as the MAX.
    - aidenn0 7y ago
      If the MCAS completely disengages, the plane is perfectly flyable under most conditions. It will just pitch up more than other planes in turns, which could be manually fixed by adjusting the trim. The MCAS system is set to automatically adjust the trim, and the crashes were caused by it doing so when there was no need.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly. This is not the problem. The aircraft's performance is within the bounds of "perfectly acceptable for what it is" but it is too different from the existing 737s in a particular area. If the portion of the MCAS that handles this particular area were just turned off the MAX would fly fine but it wouldn't be close enough to a 737 for anyone to say with a straight face that pilots can fly without retraining. This need for pilot compatibility lead to a faulty implementation of MCAS of which flies the plane into the ground in certain conditions.
  - xxpor 7y ago
    Do you refuse to take a car to the airport?
- gniv 7y ago
  Wouldn't the 787 also be a valid alternative (the smaller variants)?
  - sithadmin 7y ago
    757-300 and 787-8 have similar seat counts, but the latter is overkill in terms of range and somewhere in the ballpark of double the cost of an a321. Not to mention that pilots that are type certified for larger twin-aisle aircraft tend to be more senior and expensive than those that are certified for midrange single aisle aircraft.
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rootusrootus 7y ago
My takeaway is that Airbus and Boeing both need to make progress on their clean-sheet midsize designs. The A321XLR sounds great but it's kinda what Boeing has been doing to the 737, milking it for decades. The A320 is a newer design, for sure, but it's not young. I won't miss the 737. What I'd love to see is a twin-aisle-but-small short range aircraft. Yeah, that won't happen, but it would be comfy.
- wenc 7y ago
  The Airbus A220 (formerly the Bombardier C-Series) is a clean sheet design and by most accounts, one of the best designs of its class today. It widely considered to be a next generation commercial aircraft, and will be unsurpassed by competitors for a couple of years until they catch up with newer designs. It’s enjoyed rave reviews by consumers and airplane nerds love it. Delta has already bought a bunch and I look forward to these planes becoming more and more common. Obligatory Wendover Productions video on the A220 and the fight with Boeing https://youtu.be/V1YMPk3XhCc https://youtu.be/V1YMPk3XhCc
  - disintegore 7y ago
    IIRC, Boeing muscled the C-Series out of the market with race-to-the-bottom tactics, which eventually led to the Airbus acquisition of the program. If Airbus manages to meet its targets with the A220 this might constitute in ironic justice.
    - wenc 7y ago
      I look forward to the day when most of my regional flights are on A220s. CRJs are a little long in the tooth. ERJs are decent but A220s are much better. Cabin config is of course airline dependent but in one of the default configurations the A220 middle seat is actually wider than the flanking seats. In a world no one cares about customer comfort this is a nice reversal. As a frequent flyer customer I find comfort has much more to do with aircraft than cabin service: I flew 2 United segments in the past few days on 737 equipment. United flight attendants are the highest paid among US airlines but United doesn’t spend enough money on ops. Aircrafts had so many technical issues and both segments were heavily delayed and very uncomfortable. No amount of customer service would have helped.
whatshisface 7y ago
America is going to pay for the cronyism that merged every airplane manufacturer into one and eliminated internal competition. If you don't have internal competition, you'll collapse in the face of external competition. There is no way to get away from Boeing without getting away from the American aerospace industry entirely, a problem that didn't exist back when McDonnell Douglas was around.
- trimbo 7y ago
  Why would Airbus be different?
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    It's not, and it could easily have gone the other way. By not having any competition or diversification, countries expose themselves to tremendous risk: the balance of the aerospace industry rested on a coin flip and the US bet tails. Without the cronyism, we could have had many separate raffle tickets against Europe's one.
    - ahartmetz 7y ago
      It seems like Airbus currently is different. Maybe the friction from it being very multinational prevented it from becoming like Boeing, maybe it will have its own big scandal in a month. Who knows. But currently, Airbus does look better.
      - rsynnott 7y ago
        I mean, it wasn’t a safety scandal, but the A380 was a huge disaster for the company. I’d be more comfortable getting on a notional A360 than a notional 797, but both companies have self-harmed recently.
        CydeWeys 7y ago
        It lost them money but it didn't hurt their brand. Those are great planes to fly in as a passenger, they're just not profitable in the end for Airbus. Boeing can't even keep its newest plane in the skies, and may have killed off the 737 line for good. Think another revision after the MAX is ever going to be approved?
davidhyde 7y ago
What is keeping Boeing's share price so stable in the wake of such catastrophic news for the company this year?
- swampthinker 7y ago
  Military contracts
  - jandrese 7y ago
    That and the implicit guarantee from the government that Boeing is too big to fail.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      The USG is already putting tariffs on foreign planes. We have all the downsides of nationalization without any of the benefits of collective ownership (except for the fact that Boeing is in people's retirement accounts, which is a little collective ownership). Capitalism and socialism on their own both have provisions for taking care of the elite and taking care of the average person. What we have now with these pseudonational industries is a combination of both that takes the elite-benefiting parts of capitalism and combines them with the elite-benefiting parts of socialism.
      - magduf 7y ago
        >The USG is already putting tariffs on foreign planes. How so? They can't put tariffs on foreign planes purchased by foreign airlines, and most of the airlines in the world are not American.
        whatshisface 7y ago
        They are putting tariffs on foreign planes purchased by airlines in America. It's mentioned in the last paragraph of the linked article.
rsynnott 7y ago
> United’s 757 planes will reach the end of their lifespan in about a decade About a decade?! I was on one of their 757s returning to Dublin a while ago; it felt like they were already pushing the end of its lifespan. I suppose the repair of the interior doesn’t say much about the airframe...
- pcr0 7y ago
  Airplane lifespans are determined by pressurization/depressurization cycles (i.e. number of flight trips), not distance flown or interior wear and tear.
  - rsynnott 7y ago
    Yep, I mean I know it’s nothing to do with the interior. But this didn’t seem like a plane that was being taken care of; it felt like one they intended to scrap the next week, so there was no point putting the work in any more. I was honestly kind of shocked; hadn’t been on a plane like it since Ryanair modernised their fleet.
- fernandotakai 7y ago
  i've used united twice this year for international (and internal us) flights and holy damn their planes are dated compared to other companies.
- nutjob2 7y ago
  You can install new interiors at any time, it's just not worth it for old planes with a limited future (because they're gas guzzlers). Planes can essentially fly indefinitely if you're willing to put money into ongoing maintenance. For instance some B-52s will have served for roughly 100 years by the time they are retired.
  - bgorman 7y ago
    It may be worth it on more premium airlines. United and Delta don't retrofit old planes, but Delta does for example.
dfcagency 7y ago
I know no one wants to hear this, but Airbus just has a better product (from a passenger standpoint) - the cabins are better, the planes are quieter, the ergonomics, lighting, HVAC and pressurization is better, etc. Boeing is now Ford to Airbus's Audi.
rado 7y ago
If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going down
rakefire 7y ago
Fuel-efficiency and increased range are enticing airlines to opt for smaller planes on longer routes as they seek to control their operating costs.
yingw787 7y ago
What’s the state of mechanical engineering Software tooling / infrastructure On Linux and UNIX-like operating systems? I know Solidworks and AutoCAD are primarily Windows-based software, with proprietary data formats like .SLDPRT/.SLDASM (Solidworks Assembly) and high vendor lock-in. Why haven’t we seen greater adoption of scriptable, composable utilities (like a finite element analysis simulation) that might enable better horizontal scaling and commoditization of complements? Is it because hardware and mechengr is capital intensive already and high capex on software is justifiable? Seems to me like a first principle (software is free to copy) just waiting to be executed on. Might make entry into otherwise moaty markets like aerospace a bit easier.
- rjsw 7y ago
  Aerospace was the earliest adopter of standard CAD data formats (ISO 10303 [1]) and the current development is mainly funded by Boeing and Airbus. You could build something on top of Open Cascade Technology [2] if you want an open source solution, BRL-CAD supports STEP too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cascade_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cascade_Technology
- samcheng 7y ago
  FreeCAD is not bad and used pretty extensively by the 3D printing hobbyists. It's nicely script-able with Python. However, from my experience, it's still nowhere near the level of polish that e.g. Solidworks has, so professional work is still primarily done with non-Free tools. I have no direct information, but I'd imagine the big aerospace companies have significant proprietary internal tooling, specialized to their own work flows and IP.
  - benhurmarcel 7y ago
    > but I'd imagine the big aerospace companies have significant proprietary internal tooling Right, but for mechanical CAD it's heavily based on Catia. The customization is more on the PLM side.
ausjke 7y ago
From a different perspective that's what you got when company are obsessed to save money everywhere no matter what it takes, to the point to outsource airplane control system software to India at $9 per hour, we had airplane-battery-problem a few years back at Boeing due to the same reason, now it starts to kill people, where is the end? People buy airplane for safety first, nobody dares to buy them no matter how cheap they are if they will end up killing people on board.
DrScientist 7y ago
Looking at the bigger picture - I wonder if we are at 'peak' air travel - because: 1. Improved video conferencing quality and availability 2. potential future green initiatives - like adding tax to air fuel or frequent flyer taxes. Sure people will still want to travel, but might do less.
- azepoi 7y ago
  There will not be a ceiling anytime soon. Cheaper flights mean people relocate farther from family and companies take contracts for jobs in remote areas etc. People want to travel extensively. If people could teleport they would. There is a huge latent demand from developing countries too. That is unless we get a steep carbon tax. Hopefully we will.
- alistairSH 7y ago
  Maybe in the West, but with increasing incomes in China and India, we'll likely see increased travel in the East (and world-wide) for quite some time.
- Merrill 7y ago
  >Airlines receive only about 60% of their revenue from passengers directly (the other 40% comes from selling frequent-flier miles to credit card companies). But of that 60% of passenger consumer revenue, the big money comes from business travelers – as opposed to those flying for leisure or personal reasons – in percentages that far outweigh their numbers. Business travelers account for 12% percent of airlines' passengers, but they are typically twice as profitable. In fact, on some flights, business passengers represent 75% of an airline's profits. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-revenue-airline-industry-comes-business-travelers-compared-leisure-travelers.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-rev... I think that video conferencing and collaboration technologies have already curtailed business travel, the most profitable part of the airline business. The high volume in terms of passenger numbers is dominated by leisure travel. Video conferencing is unlikely to affect this (although the family did a Hangout at Thanksgiving), but it might be affected by stronger environmental campaigns or by a significant economic downturn. In fact, I think an economic downturn could cause a fairly steep drop in leisure air travel.
tus88 7y ago
You think they could have predicted the need for a 757 replacement and realized the 737 isn't it. Or just kept updated 757s in production, just like the 737 has been.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Boeing's next plane will likely be a 757 replacement[0]. Part of the reason that the MAX exists is the clean-sheet replacement designs take a long time (and take longer than anticipated/desired even after accounting for the fact that they take a long time). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_New_Midsize_Airplane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_New_Midsize_Airplane
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mrandish 7y ago
The A321XRs are super long single-aisle planes and they're planning to use them on trans-atlantic routes. 6 hour+ flight times on single-aisle configurations will make a poor user experience even worse.
- sithadmin 7y ago
  Single-aisle airliners are already super common on 6+ hours transcontinental flights in the US, and relatively common on shorter transatlantic flights from the US east coast to Europe (where the single-aisle 757 these jets are replacing are already used). Consumers seem to tolerate this just fine.
bfrog 7y ago
It's surprising airbus hasn't eaten more of Boeing's lunch. The A32x series planes fit the roles of the 737/757/767 seemingly, and likely don't require new certifications to fly each in the series. I think boeing has not only lost customers from the 737 max but confidence from people actually flying boeing jets as a whole. I for one look at the plane I'm flying on when buying tickets, I pay more for planes that have good to great safety records. I can't be alone in that.
- jesusthatsgreat 7y ago
  You're not alone but you're probably in the less than 1% of people who care about anything other than price when it comes to flying. Low cost airlines dominate because people people want to pay as little as possible for flights.
- Leherenn 7y ago
  They're production constrained. The backlog for A32x is like 10 year long. At some point, better a slightly inferior plane now (well, in the next few years) than in 20 years. I assume they don't increase production (or at least not enough to massively reduce this backlog) because they don't expect this to keep up, and it's a massive investment.
  - nutjob2 7y ago
    Airbus say that they would like to increase production of the A320 series but are constrained by their suppliers's ability to expand their production.
roymurdock 7y ago
It will be interesting how Boeing/Airbus/traditional carriers react when China fully enters the market with Comac-built/branded planes. Commercial flights of its first plane, the C919 are slated for 2021. The whole 737 MAX fiasco really came at a bad time for the US aerospace industry, and if the other comments about Airbus being just as bad culture-wise are true (profits/jobs over serious engineering), then China could really be set up to take a lot of commercial aircraft market share over the coming decades.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  China is still heavily dependent on Western jet engines and avionics. But they are getting experience building airframes, and they could potentially catch up in a generation or two on that given how slowly that part evolves. They won’t be able to build a 787/350 or even a 777 style carbon fiber airframe overnight, however. There is no reason for the USA to block out Comac if they are flying with Pratt&Whitney or GE/CMF engines or Honeywell flight controls.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    Yip, and Western sales targets are getting heavily dependent on Chinese purchases.
- adventured 7y ago
  What happens in that case is simple and obvious: the existing global trade barriers and protectionism will get worse. The US will move to lock Airbus and China out of its massive, wildly profitable domestic airline market through protectionism. Which is exactly what China is guaranteed to do, either directly or indirectly, as it pushes its own airplane manufacturing efforts to the forefront in the pursuit of its economic self-interest. How many Soviet-made jet planes did the US buy from 1950 to 1990?
  - igravious 7y ago
    The world was divided into two economic spheres during the Cold War. The difference now with that China is that though some would say that China is capitalist in name only (and they wouldn't be completely inaccurate) it is part of the WTO and thus part of the global capitalist system to some extent. Consider for a moment that exports account for a greater % of its GDP than does the US. Arguably China is much more like Japan of the 80s and Korea of the 90s than the soviets of the 50s. Now, if you look at the parts going into the Comac C919, a huge proportion of the parts are non-Chinese: https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2092656/china-schedules-maiden-flight-c919-passenger-jet-friday https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2092656/chin... Basically the tail, wings, radar cover, fuselage, interior, and assembly is Chinese – everything else is US and EU. (The C929 being co-developed with Russia has a greater percentage of parts home-made – this is exactly how China is ramping up its aircraft carrier development, methodically and incrementally bringing more and more expertise onshore). Buying the C919 when it hits mass production will be like buying a very familiar but cheaper Airbus or Boeing equivalent. Neither Japan nor Korea nor Russia have ever managed to pull this off. Who knows what will happen. Time will tell. Looking to the Soviet past is not a good indicator of what is coming down the pike imho.
crb 7y ago
Fun fact: United used to be part of Boeing. The two were split in 1934 when a scandal around air mail pricing led to laws saying you couldn't both make planes and operate them commercially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines
- igravious 7y ago
  "you couldn't both make planes and operate them commercially." We need a way more laws like this :) I'll start with 3 off the top of my head. 1) You can't both make content and distribute content commercially 2) (More abstractly) You can't both make a platform and compete with sellers and resellers on that platform 3) You can't both make a mass or social media product and allow advertisers' concerns to dictate content They're a bit sketchy but you get where I'm coming from I hope?
  - wvenable 7y ago
    Sometimes this has unintended consequences. For example, not being able to make cars and sell them directly as created a system that doesn't necessarily benefit consumers.
  - ggm 7y ago
    Australia has media policy like this in regard to newspaper TV and radio in Metro areas. Didn't stop Rupert Murdoch centralised ownership of media but kind of kept it at bay. Also banking.
caseyf7 7y ago
I hope the 30% lower fuel burn per seat compared to previous generation aircraft is not due to packing the seats even tighter.
briandear 7y ago
Too bad they couldn’t just order new 757s. A great airplane.
throwawaymanbot 7y ago
Crony capitalism and its GOP cheerleaders STRIKE AGAIN!!! 1. Get rid of all competition 2. THEN be SOOOO LAZY as to say "why even bother testing??? Whos gonna better the only game in town. Right?" 3. Pay lobbyist to change rules. Weaken the People responsible for ensuring dilligent testing of product. (Maybe say they are anti business etc) 4. Profit!!!!! 5. Kill people due to your Crony Capitalism birthed, inferior product.
just_steve_h 7y ago
I can't believe no one has linked L. J. Hart-Smith's classic 2001 paper "Out-Sourced Profits" yet! http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/02/04/2014130646.pdf http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/02/04/2014130646... It offers a detailed look at Douglas Aircraft and their doomed attempt to boost profits via outsourcing. Those familiar with the commercial aviation business know that Boeing's "purchase" of McDonnell-Douglas resulted in wholesale importation of Douglas's accounting wizardry to what had been a largely engineering- and safety-driven corporate culture. Relevance to the MAX fiasco and the tardiness of Boeing's NMA designs is left as an exercise to the reader…
honestoHeminway 7y ago
What actually was needed by the market, small planes, that could be recombined into a bigger plane on demand.. What they got: Lots of small planes derived from old planes..

355 points by nolok 7y ago

Mostly, this proves that the 737 MAX isn't a valid alternative to the 757. This goes against Boeing's official stance. The A321 (and the 757) is a lot more flexible, can carry more cargo, and has better performance.

kitteh 7y ago
Pilots have been saying this for a long time. But it started with anger towards the constant expansion of the 737 (the 900 has some additional limits that hit hard when icing conditions in some places like Denver). The 757 was the sports car of airliners but with a high price tag (and it never really displaced the 727). As for the A321...it had a rocky start.
cdibona 7y ago
The Max wasn't supposed to replace the 757 except in a few niche cases. As mentioned in the article, the nma launch delay being put off to 2020 lost Boeing this contract.
- jandrese 7y ago
  Boeing doesn't really have anything to replace the 757 with except the -MAX at this point.
MichaelApproved 7y ago
Well, the 737 MAX isn’t a valid alternative to anything while it’s grounded. Maybe the concept of the MAX being a replacement was valid but, based on Boeing’s blundering development of the plane, can you really fault anyone for avoiding it? Will the MAX fly again? Will it crash again? Will passengers trust it again? Too many unknown questions make it hard to plan ahead.
- nolok 7y ago
  Actually, it's really not. United has already bought MAXes to replace other planes, but to replace their 757 they waited Boeing new annoncement that was supposed to be this year (except Boeing delayed it to next year a few months ago).
- FabHK 7y ago
  It just occurred to me that Boeing has been quite successful with branding ("Dreamliner", "MAX"), but maybe wishes it hadn't been... Everyone now knows that MAX is bad, but how many people can tell the difference between a 737-8 and a 737-800?
  - mrpippy 7y ago
    Boeing still may rebrand the plane and stop calling it the MAX, as you say it was only ever a marketing name. The plane is certified as the “737-8”, “737-9”, etc.
rburhum 7y ago
It is not that. It is that regardless if the plane is "fixed" or not, many frequent travelers will refuse to fly on a 737 MAX from now on. Last year I took 73 flights. At least three of those were on a MAX. I profusely refuse to get on one of those, regardless if they are fixed or not.
- tw04 7y ago
  I flew about the same, fortunately never on a MAX. That being said I'm in the same boat, you couldn't pay me enough money to take a ride on a plane that the pilot literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly. Maybe I'm just blissfully ignorant to how bad all the planes in the air are... but I feel like pilots would be screaming bloody murder if they were all as bad as the MAX.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    If the MCAS completely disengages, the plane is perfectly flyable under most conditions. It will just pitch up more than other planes in turns, which could be manually fixed by adjusting the trim. The MCAS system is set to automatically adjust the trim, and the crashes were caused by it doing so when there was no need.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly. This is not the problem. The aircraft's performance is within the bounds of "perfectly acceptable for what it is" but it is too different from the existing 737s in a particular area. If the portion of the MCAS that handles this particular area were just turned off the MAX would fly fine but it wouldn't be close enough to a 737 for anyone to say with a straight face that pilots can fly without retraining. This need for pilot compatibility lead to a faulty implementation of MCAS of which flies the plane into the ground in certain conditions.
- xxpor 7y ago
  Do you refuse to take a car to the airport?
gniv 7y ago
Wouldn't the 787 also be a valid alternative (the smaller variants)?
- sithadmin 7y ago
  757-300 and 787-8 have similar seat counts, but the latter is overkill in terms of range and somewhere in the ballpark of double the cost of an a321. Not to mention that pilots that are type certified for larger twin-aisle aircraft tend to be more senior and expensive than those that are certified for midrange single aisle aircraft.

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rootusrootus 7y ago

My takeaway is that Airbus and Boeing both need to make progress on their clean-sheet midsize designs. The A321XLR sounds great but it's kinda what Boeing has been doing to the 737, milking it for decades. The A320 is a newer design, for sure, but it's not young. I won't miss the 737. What I'd love to see is a twin-aisle-but-small short range aircraft. Yeah, that won't happen, but it would be comfy.

wenc 7y ago
The Airbus A220 (formerly the Bombardier C-Series) is a clean sheet design and by most accounts, one of the best designs of its class today. It widely considered to be a next generation commercial aircraft, and will be unsurpassed by competitors for a couple of years until they catch up with newer designs. It’s enjoyed rave reviews by consumers and airplane nerds love it. Delta has already bought a bunch and I look forward to these planes becoming more and more common. Obligatory Wendover Productions video on the A220 and the fight with Boeing https://youtu.be/V1YMPk3XhCc https://youtu.be/V1YMPk3XhCc
- disintegore 7y ago
  IIRC, Boeing muscled the C-Series out of the market with race-to-the-bottom tactics, which eventually led to the Airbus acquisition of the program. If Airbus manages to meet its targets with the A220 this might constitute in ironic justice.
  - wenc 7y ago
    I look forward to the day when most of my regional flights are on A220s. CRJs are a little long in the tooth. ERJs are decent but A220s are much better. Cabin config is of course airline dependent but in one of the default configurations the A220 middle seat is actually wider than the flanking seats. In a world no one cares about customer comfort this is a nice reversal. As a frequent flyer customer I find comfort has much more to do with aircraft than cabin service: I flew 2 United segments in the past few days on 737 equipment. United flight attendants are the highest paid among US airlines but United doesn’t spend enough money on ops. Aircrafts had so many technical issues and both segments were heavily delayed and very uncomfortable. No amount of customer service would have helped.

whatshisface 7y ago

America is going to pay for the cronyism that merged every airplane manufacturer into one and eliminated internal competition. If you don't have internal competition, you'll collapse in the face of external competition. There is no way to get away from Boeing without getting away from the American aerospace industry entirely, a problem that didn't exist back when McDonnell Douglas was around.

trimbo 7y ago
Why would Airbus be different?
- whatshisface 7y ago
  It's not, and it could easily have gone the other way. By not having any competition or diversification, countries expose themselves to tremendous risk: the balance of the aerospace industry rested on a coin flip and the US bet tails. Without the cronyism, we could have had many separate raffle tickets against Europe's one.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    It seems like Airbus currently is different. Maybe the friction from it being very multinational prevented it from becoming like Boeing, maybe it will have its own big scandal in a month. Who knows. But currently, Airbus does look better.
    - rsynnott 7y ago
      I mean, it wasn’t a safety scandal, but the A380 was a huge disaster for the company. I’d be more comfortable getting on a notional A360 than a notional 797, but both companies have self-harmed recently.
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        It lost them money but it didn't hurt their brand. Those are great planes to fly in as a passenger, they're just not profitable in the end for Airbus. Boeing can't even keep its newest plane in the skies, and may have killed off the 737 line for good. Think another revision after the MAX is ever going to be approved?

davidhyde 7y ago

What is keeping Boeing's share price so stable in the wake of such catastrophic news for the company this year?

swampthinker 7y ago
Military contracts
- jandrese 7y ago
  That and the implicit guarantee from the government that Boeing is too big to fail.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    The USG is already putting tariffs on foreign planes. We have all the downsides of nationalization without any of the benefits of collective ownership (except for the fact that Boeing is in people's retirement accounts, which is a little collective ownership). Capitalism and socialism on their own both have provisions for taking care of the elite and taking care of the average person. What we have now with these pseudonational industries is a combination of both that takes the elite-benefiting parts of capitalism and combines them with the elite-benefiting parts of socialism.
    - magduf 7y ago
      >The USG is already putting tariffs on foreign planes. How so? They can't put tariffs on foreign planes purchased by foreign airlines, and most of the airlines in the world are not American.
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        They are putting tariffs on foreign planes purchased by airlines in America. It's mentioned in the last paragraph of the linked article.

rsynnott 7y ago

> United’s 757 planes will reach the end of their lifespan in about a decade About a decade?! I was on one of their 757s returning to Dublin a while ago; it felt like they were already pushing the end of its lifespan. I suppose the repair of the interior doesn’t say much about the airframe...

pcr0 7y ago
Airplane lifespans are determined by pressurization/depressurization cycles (i.e. number of flight trips), not distance flown or interior wear and tear.
- rsynnott 7y ago
  Yep, I mean I know it’s nothing to do with the interior. But this didn’t seem like a plane that was being taken care of; it felt like one they intended to scrap the next week, so there was no point putting the work in any more. I was honestly kind of shocked; hadn’t been on a plane like it since Ryanair modernised their fleet.
fernandotakai 7y ago
i've used united twice this year for international (and internal us) flights and holy damn their planes are dated compared to other companies.
nutjob2 7y ago
You can install new interiors at any time, it's just not worth it for old planes with a limited future (because they're gas guzzlers). Planes can essentially fly indefinitely if you're willing to put money into ongoing maintenance. For instance some B-52s will have served for roughly 100 years by the time they are retired.
- bgorman 7y ago
  It may be worth it on more premium airlines. United and Delta don't retrofit old planes, but Delta does for example.

dfcagency 7y ago

I know no one wants to hear this, but Airbus just has a better product (from a passenger standpoint) - the cabins are better, the planes are quieter, the ergonomics, lighting, HVAC and pressurization is better, etc. Boeing is now Ford to Airbus's Audi.

rado 7y ago

If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going down

rakefire 7y ago

Fuel-efficiency and increased range are enticing airlines to opt for smaller planes on longer routes as they seek to control their operating costs.

yingw787 7y ago

What’s the state of mechanical engineering Software tooling / infrastructure On Linux and UNIX-like operating systems? I know Solidworks and AutoCAD are primarily Windows-based software, with proprietary data formats like .SLDPRT/.SLDASM (Solidworks Assembly) and high vendor lock-in. Why haven’t we seen greater adoption of scriptable, composable utilities (like a finite element analysis simulation) that might enable better horizontal scaling and commoditization of complements? Is it because hardware and mechengr is capital intensive already and high capex on software is justifiable? Seems to me like a first principle (software is free to copy) just waiting to be executed on. Might make entry into otherwise moaty markets like aerospace a bit easier.

rjsw 7y ago
Aerospace was the earliest adopter of standard CAD data formats (ISO 10303 [1]) and the current development is mainly funded by Boeing and Airbus. You could build something on top of Open Cascade Technology [2] if you want an open source solution, BRL-CAD supports STEP too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cascade_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cascade_Technology
samcheng 7y ago
FreeCAD is not bad and used pretty extensively by the 3D printing hobbyists. It's nicely script-able with Python. However, from my experience, it's still nowhere near the level of polish that e.g. Solidworks has, so professional work is still primarily done with non-Free tools. I have no direct information, but I'd imagine the big aerospace companies have significant proprietary internal tooling, specialized to their own work flows and IP.
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  > but I'd imagine the big aerospace companies have significant proprietary internal tooling Right, but for mechanical CAD it's heavily based on Catia. The customization is more on the PLM side.

ausjke 7y ago

From a different perspective that's what you got when company are obsessed to save money everywhere no matter what it takes, to the point to outsource airplane control system software to India at $9 per hour, we had airplane-battery-problem a few years back at Boeing due to the same reason, now it starts to kill people, where is the end? People buy airplane for safety first, nobody dares to buy them no matter how cheap they are if they will end up killing people on board.

DrScientist 7y ago

Looking at the bigger picture - I wonder if we are at 'peak' air travel - because: 1. Improved video conferencing quality and availability 2. potential future green initiatives - like adding tax to air fuel or frequent flyer taxes. Sure people will still want to travel, but might do less.

azepoi 7y ago
There will not be a ceiling anytime soon. Cheaper flights mean people relocate farther from family and companies take contracts for jobs in remote areas etc. People want to travel extensively. If people could teleport they would. There is a huge latent demand from developing countries too. That is unless we get a steep carbon tax. Hopefully we will.
alistairSH 7y ago
Maybe in the West, but with increasing incomes in China and India, we'll likely see increased travel in the East (and world-wide) for quite some time.
Merrill 7y ago
>Airlines receive only about 60% of their revenue from passengers directly (the other 40% comes from selling frequent-flier miles to credit card companies). But of that 60% of passenger consumer revenue, the big money comes from business travelers – as opposed to those flying for leisure or personal reasons – in percentages that far outweigh their numbers. Business travelers account for 12% percent of airlines' passengers, but they are typically twice as profitable. In fact, on some flights, business passengers represent 75% of an airline's profits. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-revenue-airline-industry-comes-business-travelers-compared-leisure-travelers.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-rev... I think that video conferencing and collaboration technologies have already curtailed business travel, the most profitable part of the airline business. The high volume in terms of passenger numbers is dominated by leisure travel. Video conferencing is unlikely to affect this (although the family did a Hangout at Thanksgiving), but it might be affected by stronger environmental campaigns or by a significant economic downturn. In fact, I think an economic downturn could cause a fairly steep drop in leisure air travel.

tus88 7y ago

You think they could have predicted the need for a 757 replacement and realized the 737 isn't it. Or just kept updated 757s in production, just like the 737 has been.

0xffff2 7y ago
Boeing's next plane will likely be a 757 replacement[0]. Part of the reason that the MAX exists is the clean-sheet replacement designs take a long time (and take longer than anticipated/desired even after accounting for the fact that they take a long time). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_New_Midsize_Airplane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_New_Midsize_Airplane

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mrandish 7y ago

The A321XRs are super long single-aisle planes and they're planning to use them on trans-atlantic routes. 6 hour+ flight times on single-aisle configurations will make a poor user experience even worse.

sithadmin 7y ago
Single-aisle airliners are already super common on 6+ hours transcontinental flights in the US, and relatively common on shorter transatlantic flights from the US east coast to Europe (where the single-aisle 757 these jets are replacing are already used). Consumers seem to tolerate this just fine.

bfrog 7y ago

It's surprising airbus hasn't eaten more of Boeing's lunch. The A32x series planes fit the roles of the 737/757/767 seemingly, and likely don't require new certifications to fly each in the series. I think boeing has not only lost customers from the 737 max but confidence from people actually flying boeing jets as a whole. I for one look at the plane I'm flying on when buying tickets, I pay more for planes that have good to great safety records. I can't be alone in that.

jesusthatsgreat 7y ago
You're not alone but you're probably in the less than 1% of people who care about anything other than price when it comes to flying. Low cost airlines dominate because people people want to pay as little as possible for flights.
Leherenn 7y ago
They're production constrained. The backlog for A32x is like 10 year long. At some point, better a slightly inferior plane now (well, in the next few years) than in 20 years. I assume they don't increase production (or at least not enough to massively reduce this backlog) because they don't expect this to keep up, and it's a massive investment.
- nutjob2 7y ago
  Airbus say that they would like to increase production of the A320 series but are constrained by their suppliers's ability to expand their production.

roymurdock 7y ago

It will be interesting how Boeing/Airbus/traditional carriers react when China fully enters the market with Comac-built/branded planes. Commercial flights of its first plane, the C919 are slated for 2021. The whole 737 MAX fiasco really came at a bad time for the US aerospace industry, and if the other comments about Airbus being just as bad culture-wise are true (profits/jobs over serious engineering), then China could really be set up to take a lot of commercial aircraft market share over the coming decades.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
China is still heavily dependent on Western jet engines and avionics. But they are getting experience building airframes, and they could potentially catch up in a generation or two on that given how slowly that part evolves. They won’t be able to build a 787/350 or even a 777 style carbon fiber airframe overnight, however. There is no reason for the USA to block out Comac if they are flying with Pratt&Whitney or GE/CMF engines or Honeywell flight controls.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  Yip, and Western sales targets are getting heavily dependent on Chinese purchases.
adventured 7y ago
What happens in that case is simple and obvious: the existing global trade barriers and protectionism will get worse. The US will move to lock Airbus and China out of its massive, wildly profitable domestic airline market through protectionism. Which is exactly what China is guaranteed to do, either directly or indirectly, as it pushes its own airplane manufacturing efforts to the forefront in the pursuit of its economic self-interest. How many Soviet-made jet planes did the US buy from 1950 to 1990?
- igravious 7y ago
  The world was divided into two economic spheres during the Cold War. The difference now with that China is that though some would say that China is capitalist in name only (and they wouldn't be completely inaccurate) it is part of the WTO and thus part of the global capitalist system to some extent. Consider for a moment that exports account for a greater % of its GDP than does the US. Arguably China is much more like Japan of the 80s and Korea of the 90s than the soviets of the 50s. Now, if you look at the parts going into the Comac C919, a huge proportion of the parts are non-Chinese: https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2092656/china-schedules-maiden-flight-c919-passenger-jet-friday https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2092656/chin... Basically the tail, wings, radar cover, fuselage, interior, and assembly is Chinese – everything else is US and EU. (The C929 being co-developed with Russia has a greater percentage of parts home-made – this is exactly how China is ramping up its aircraft carrier development, methodically and incrementally bringing more and more expertise onshore). Buying the C919 when it hits mass production will be like buying a very familiar but cheaper Airbus or Boeing equivalent. Neither Japan nor Korea nor Russia have ever managed to pull this off. Who knows what will happen. Time will tell. Looking to the Soviet past is not a good indicator of what is coming down the pike imho.

crb 7y ago

Fun fact: United used to be part of Boeing. The two were split in 1934 when a scandal around air mail pricing led to laws saying you couldn't both make planes and operate them commercially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines

igravious 7y ago
"you couldn't both make planes and operate them commercially." We need a way more laws like this :) I'll start with 3 off the top of my head. 1) You can't both make content and distribute content commercially 2) (More abstractly) You can't both make a platform and compete with sellers and resellers on that platform 3) You can't both make a mass or social media product and allow advertisers' concerns to dictate content They're a bit sketchy but you get where I'm coming from I hope?
- wvenable 7y ago
  Sometimes this has unintended consequences. For example, not being able to make cars and sell them directly as created a system that doesn't necessarily benefit consumers.
- ggm 7y ago
  Australia has media policy like this in regard to newspaper TV and radio in Metro areas. Didn't stop Rupert Murdoch centralised ownership of media but kind of kept it at bay. Also banking.

caseyf7 7y ago

I hope the 30% lower fuel burn per seat compared to previous generation aircraft is not due to packing the seats even tighter.

briandear 7y ago

Too bad they couldn’t just order new 757s. A great airplane.

throwawaymanbot 7y ago

Crony capitalism and its GOP cheerleaders STRIKE AGAIN!!! 1. Get rid of all competition 2. THEN be SOOOO LAZY as to say "why even bother testing??? Whos gonna better the only game in town. Right?" 3. Pay lobbyist to change rules. Weaken the People responsible for ensuring dilligent testing of product. (Maybe say they are anti business etc) 4. Profit!!!!! 5. Kill people due to your Crony Capitalism birthed, inferior product.

just_steve_h 7y ago

I can't believe no one has linked L. J. Hart-Smith's classic 2001 paper "Out-Sourced Profits" yet! http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/02/04/2014130646.pdf http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/02/04/2014130646... It offers a detailed look at Douglas Aircraft and their doomed attempt to boost profits via outsourcing. Those familiar with the commercial aviation business know that Boeing's "purchase" of McDonnell-Douglas resulted in wholesale importation of Douglas's accounting wizardry to what had been a largely engineering- and safety-driven corporate culture. Relevance to the MAX fiasco and the tardiness of Boeing's NMA designs is left as an exercise to the reader…

honestoHeminway 7y ago

What actually was needed by the market, small planes, that could be recombined into a bigger plane on demand.. What they got: Lots of small planes derived from old planes..