5 ms·

Since the late 90s/early 00's this type of concerns / horrible culture shifts and strategic mistakes were known and by the time the Dreamliner came out it was c

Since the late 90s/early 00's this type of concerns / horrible culture shifts and strategic mistakes were known and by the time the Dreamliner came out it was common knowledge even in the mainstream. Of course when the Max 8's started to fall and killing people everybody pretended to be shocked and surprised again. And of course the "incidents" are always "different and not related", but as any very complex system goes, these "incidents" always end up happening due to the same root cause. And yet again another evidence nobody learned anything with the latest big scandal of 2018/19, Boeing actively lobbied to reduce and get even more exceptions for QA and safety rules AFTER 2019. During the 00's it was already clear many of their planes were clearly not the best on the market for various reasons, but a few phone calls from key people in the US government to the prospective buyers would always "help" the customer to make the "right buying decision", so new orders were always arriving, money coming in, stock and compensations for the big wigs was obviously sky high so anyone who raised any concerns was always ignored or fired, but by that time Boeing was already rotten. I just pray I'm wrong and all of those planes don't crash until they are retired, but the new ones seem to be even worse.. so I don't know..

riffraff 3y ago
Is the dreamliner bad? I was under the impression it was quite nice and had partially eaten the lunch of Airbus' A380 by making longer flights with smaller plane economically advantageous.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  The 787 is fine. It's by far the most comfortable aircraft I've ever ridden, and the batteries-going-up-in-flames issue was short-lived and if I recall stemmed from some manufacturing deficiencies at the Japanese OEM (I am brainfarting their name). That being said however, the kind of workmanship negligience we have reason to suspect of Boeing means absolutely no Boeing aircraft manufactured during the timeframe(s) concerned can be considered safe until inspections are done. For now we don't have reason to suspect this extends beyond 737 MAX 9, but that could change drastically depending on what FAA finds.
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    > For now we don't have reason to suspect this extends beyond 737 MAX 9 Boeing in 2023 deferred 787 deliveries again because the manufacturing process was found to not have been properly followed. In the past they also found debris left on planes. Maybe this issue specific to the MAX 9 but manufacturing issues at Boeing are not at all an isolated thing.
    - RaftPeople 3y ago
      Ya, 787 quality issues have been publicized for a few years now, especially at the South Carolina facility. I also remember the DoD temporarily stopping deliveries of planes from Being due to quality, possibly last year or the year before.
    - fransje26 3y ago
      To add to the manufacturing issues, there are also other 787 issues to be concerned about. The lithium-ion debacle, for one. It's only by shear luck that the original design issues didn't end in fatalities. And the fix is.. ..meh.. The redesign of the lightening protection system to save costs is also something that has been overlooked until now.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      While I'm a fan of airbus they're not perfect either. Consider the paint flaking issues at Qatar airlines. Even though airbus says this shouldn't be a safety issue, it is really a serious quality problem.
- inferiorhuman 3y ago
  The 787 is an innovative aircraft, but its existence is a comedy of errors. It was never competition for the A380 though. The problem is that Boeing bit off more than they could chew when they tried to innovate in three areas: concept, design, and execution. They outsourced the latter two and provided insufficient oversight. Concept: Lithium-ion batteries are great tech. Design: Boeing outsourced the electrical system design work to Thales, and the first production airliner designed around lithium-ion batteries seemed like a great idea until they started catching fire. Execution: Relying heavily on sub-contractors to build big chunks of the 787 was a great idea to save money, until the subs couldn't maintain the pace Boeing wanted for the price Boeing was willing to pay. So Boeing bought the South Carolina facility. And Boeing keeps insisting on learning the hard way. Last year the FAA halted deliveries of the 787 for a few months due to quality issues.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    The outsourcing and the SC facility are also motivated by Boeing’s decades-long war with its unions in Washington. Unfortunately for Boeing, the unionized workers in Renton and Everett were really good at their jobs compared to the workers in SC and at the subs, to the point that customers specifically demanded only to receive 787’s that were built in Everett. I am not, in general, a pro-union guy, so I’m arguing against my natural bias here. But Boeing fucked up big time moving production out of Washington.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      It seems like McDonnell Douglas thinks unions are the biggest threat to Boeing, not IP. Big parts of the 787 design did not require the ridiculous gantry crane to move and place. I could see that the point of that was to be able to spin up new production sites effectively, and the main value in that was not building a million planes but leverage against the unions. I think buying SC was crocodile tears at best.
    - KennyBlanken 3y ago
      It's an impressive level of cognitive dissonance to describe union workers as more competent and customers demanding union-built planes because those planes are better built, and then still feel the need to throw in a "unions suck" comment.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  The 787 is not bad. Its a great aircraft and they have sold a shit-ton of them. But it was also a program that went hilariously over budget. Nearly costing as much as the A380. It had a whole bunch of problems and still has problems today. Lots of production issues. This had lead to a situation where they will need to sold literally 1500 or more planes to break even on the program. And 1500 is a gigantic amount of wide-bodies. The 787 didn't really eat A380s lunch. Its more like 2 companies both thought about what the best investment would be for the future. Boeing picked the right plane. Airbus picked the wrong plane. The competitor to the A380 was the 747-8 and the 777. Had Airbus not totally misread the market and invested in totally the wrong market. The Dreamliner could have backfired on Boeing. If Airbus had a 787 serious competitor out at the same time, the 787 might never have sold more then 1500 times. They already have total order of around 1800 and there are likely gone be many more because Airbus doesn't have a perfect competitor plane. In the wide-body market, Boeing is still totally competitive with Airbus. Its the narrow body market where Airbus is kicking Boeing ass.
  - gmac 3y ago
    I thought the A350 was Airbus’s answer to the 787. Curious why that’s not a ‘perfect competitor’?
    - rowyourboat 3y ago
      It's a bit larger, more in the range of the 777 than the 787. Roughly, it used to be A330 vs 767 and A340 vs 777, the A330 and the 777 were the winners in these segments. The 787 was built to beat the A330, and it did, and the A350 was built to beat the 777, and it might. Airbus reacted to the 787 with a re-engined A330, the A330neo, which was not a great success, but not a total flop. Boeing re-engined and enlarged the 777 to create the 777X, whose smaller variant positioned against the A350 is a slow seller, but whose larger variant, which has no direct competitor, has seen some sales - if Boeing manages to get it out of the door, the program is again hugely delayed and over budget.
      - dehrmann 3y ago
- lmm 3y ago
  They took more risks than they should've. Which is a strategy that pays off until it doesn't, as we're seeing now.
- koyote 3y ago
  There's this article about a Boeing quality manager that raised very similar safety and QA issues (and general culture issues) during the 787 development: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett...
koonsolo 3y ago
I have an inside story about the Dreamliner. I know a person that was part of buying a few for an airliner. To my understanding there were 2 factories that made them, Seattle and somewhere in the South. There was a huge difference between the quality of the two. Everyone buying tried to get a plane that was made in Seattle and not in the South (can't remember exactly where it was).
- philwelch 3y ago
  South Carolina. Also Boeing doesn’t have any factories in Seattle. They have factories in Renton and Everett. The 787 used to be made in Everett. Renton is kind of a suburb of Seattle but Everett isn’t even particularly close.
  - RaftPeople 3y ago
    I think when people say "Seattle", they are generally referring to the Seattle metro area which frequently encompasses Seattle, Everett, Tacoma and the eastside (e.g. Bellevue), but for some conversations Tacoma is considered a separate metro area.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      Seattle people get touchy about referring even to Seattle suburbs as Seattle but Everett isn’t even close. Calling Everett Seattle is like calling Santa Cruz San Francisco.
      - rootusrootus 3y ago
        Or referring to Beaverton, Oregon City, or Gresham (and similar) as Portland. That makes sense, locals absolutely see the distinction, but if I told someone in another state (other than perhaps Washington) where I lived, I'd just say "Portland" even though I don't live anywhere near the city limits. But the actual Portland people are quick to jump on me if we're in a call and I say I'm from Portland :).
    - 3y ago

riffraff 3y ago

Is the dreamliner bad? I was under the impression it was quite nice and had partially eaten the lunch of Airbus' A380 by making longer flights with smaller plane economically advantageous.

Dalewyn 3y ago
The 787 is fine. It's by far the most comfortable aircraft I've ever ridden, and the batteries-going-up-in-flames issue was short-lived and if I recall stemmed from some manufacturing deficiencies at the Japanese OEM (I am brainfarting their name). That being said however, the kind of workmanship negligience we have reason to suspect of Boeing means absolutely no Boeing aircraft manufactured during the timeframe(s) concerned can be considered safe until inspections are done. For now we don't have reason to suspect this extends beyond 737 MAX 9, but that could change drastically depending on what FAA finds.
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  > For now we don't have reason to suspect this extends beyond 737 MAX 9 Boeing in 2023 deferred 787 deliveries again because the manufacturing process was found to not have been properly followed. In the past they also found debris left on planes. Maybe this issue specific to the MAX 9 but manufacturing issues at Boeing are not at all an isolated thing.
  - RaftPeople 3y ago
    Ya, 787 quality issues have been publicized for a few years now, especially at the South Carolina facility. I also remember the DoD temporarily stopping deliveries of planes from Being due to quality, possibly last year or the year before.
  - fransje26 3y ago
    To add to the manufacturing issues, there are also other 787 issues to be concerned about. The lithium-ion debacle, for one. It's only by shear luck that the original design issues didn't end in fatalities. And the fix is.. ..meh.. The redesign of the lightening protection system to save costs is also something that has been overlooked until now.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    While I'm a fan of airbus they're not perfect either. Consider the paint flaking issues at Qatar airlines. Even though airbus says this shouldn't be a safety issue, it is really a serious quality problem.
inferiorhuman 3y ago
The 787 is an innovative aircraft, but its existence is a comedy of errors. It was never competition for the A380 though. The problem is that Boeing bit off more than they could chew when they tried to innovate in three areas: concept, design, and execution. They outsourced the latter two and provided insufficient oversight. Concept: Lithium-ion batteries are great tech. Design: Boeing outsourced the electrical system design work to Thales, and the first production airliner designed around lithium-ion batteries seemed like a great idea until they started catching fire. Execution: Relying heavily on sub-contractors to build big chunks of the 787 was a great idea to save money, until the subs couldn't maintain the pace Boeing wanted for the price Boeing was willing to pay. So Boeing bought the South Carolina facility. And Boeing keeps insisting on learning the hard way. Last year the FAA halted deliveries of the 787 for a few months due to quality issues.
- philwelch 3y ago
  The outsourcing and the SC facility are also motivated by Boeing’s decades-long war with its unions in Washington. Unfortunately for Boeing, the unionized workers in Renton and Everett were really good at their jobs compared to the workers in SC and at the subs, to the point that customers specifically demanded only to receive 787’s that were built in Everett. I am not, in general, a pro-union guy, so I’m arguing against my natural bias here. But Boeing fucked up big time moving production out of Washington.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    It seems like McDonnell Douglas thinks unions are the biggest threat to Boeing, not IP. Big parts of the 787 design did not require the ridiculous gantry crane to move and place. I could see that the point of that was to be able to spin up new production sites effectively, and the main value in that was not building a million planes but leverage against the unions. I think buying SC was crocodile tears at best.
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    It's an impressive level of cognitive dissonance to describe union workers as more competent and customers demanding union-built planes because those planes are better built, and then still feel the need to throw in a "unions suck" comment.
panick21_ 3y ago
The 787 is not bad. Its a great aircraft and they have sold a shit-ton of them. But it was also a program that went hilariously over budget. Nearly costing as much as the A380. It had a whole bunch of problems and still has problems today. Lots of production issues. This had lead to a situation where they will need to sold literally 1500 or more planes to break even on the program. And 1500 is a gigantic amount of wide-bodies. The 787 didn't really eat A380s lunch. Its more like 2 companies both thought about what the best investment would be for the future. Boeing picked the right plane. Airbus picked the wrong plane. The competitor to the A380 was the 747-8 and the 777. Had Airbus not totally misread the market and invested in totally the wrong market. The Dreamliner could have backfired on Boeing. If Airbus had a 787 serious competitor out at the same time, the 787 might never have sold more then 1500 times. They already have total order of around 1800 and there are likely gone be many more because Airbus doesn't have a perfect competitor plane. In the wide-body market, Boeing is still totally competitive with Airbus. Its the narrow body market where Airbus is kicking Boeing ass.
- gmac 3y ago
  I thought the A350 was Airbus’s answer to the 787. Curious why that’s not a ‘perfect competitor’?
  - rowyourboat 3y ago
    It's a bit larger, more in the range of the 777 than the 787. Roughly, it used to be A330 vs 767 and A340 vs 777, the A330 and the 777 were the winners in these segments. The 787 was built to beat the A330, and it did, and the A350 was built to beat the 777, and it might. Airbus reacted to the 787 with a re-engined A330, the A330neo, which was not a great success, but not a total flop. Boeing re-engined and enlarged the 777 to create the 777X, whose smaller variant positioned against the A350 is a slow seller, but whose larger variant, which has no direct competitor, has seen some sales - if Boeing manages to get it out of the door, the program is again hugely delayed and over budget.
    - dehrmann 3y ago
lmm 3y ago
They took more risks than they should've. Which is a strategy that pays off until it doesn't, as we're seeing now.
koyote 3y ago
There's this article about a Boeing quality manager that raised very similar safety and QA issues (and general culture issues) during the 787 development: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett...

koonsolo 3y ago

I have an inside story about the Dreamliner. I know a person that was part of buying a few for an airliner. To my understanding there were 2 factories that made them, Seattle and somewhere in the South. There was a huge difference between the quality of the two. Everyone buying tried to get a plane that was made in Seattle and not in the South (can't remember exactly where it was).

philwelch 3y ago
South Carolina. Also Boeing doesn’t have any factories in Seattle. They have factories in Renton and Everett. The 787 used to be made in Everett. Renton is kind of a suburb of Seattle but Everett isn’t even particularly close.
- RaftPeople 3y ago
  I think when people say "Seattle", they are generally referring to the Seattle metro area which frequently encompasses Seattle, Everett, Tacoma and the eastside (e.g. Bellevue), but for some conversations Tacoma is considered a separate metro area.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    Seattle people get touchy about referring even to Seattle suburbs as Seattle but Everett isn’t even close. Calling Everett Seattle is like calling Santa Cruz San Francisco.
    - rootusrootus 3y ago
      Or referring to Beaverton, Oregon City, or Gresham (and similar) as Portland. That makes sense, locals absolutely see the distinction, but if I told someone in another state (other than perhaps Washington) where I lived, I'd just say "Portland" even though I don't live anywhere near the city limits. But the actual Portland people are quick to jump on me if we're in a call and I say I'm from Portland :).
  - 3y ago