7 ms·

She will run commercial, not the entirety of Boeing. I'd expect any incoming CEO to make some changes anyway.

lenerdenator 3y ago
For better or worse, the commercial side is what matters. If an F-15 has a wing disintegrate in flight, we might hear a blurb about it on the news and maybe a pilot and a few people on the ground die. Tragic, but it's not a blow to the confidence in air travel. If something happens with a 737, there's hundreds of deaths, the public won't get on that plane, the FAA and NTSB release extensive reports, and the backlog for aircraft gets even longer for airlines. Another company sucked dry by business school vampires.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  > the public won't get on that plane Is that really the case? I've never been given the ability to pick the aircraft when flying. I traveled last month for a wedding and made it a point to book a flight scheduled for Airbus planes. Turns out the return trip was changed and I flew Boeing on the way back. Delta didn't do anything wrong there, I just have no say in what plane I book a ticket for.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Is that really the case? In extremis, yes. In practice, no–shave a nickel off the ticket price and you’ll replace those people. The purchaser with power is the airline. And even they mostly lean into safety due to the financial cost of cancellations and grounding. Regulators, not markets, make flying safe.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      > ... shave a nickel off the ticket price and you’ll replace those people. While it's possible that's true, doing that is also gifting those customers to your competitors. So there's another dynamic there to consider as well. ;)
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > that is also gifting those customers to your competitors To zero practical extent, particularly when you weight for frequent fliers. Most consumers pick the cheapest ticket. Those who don’t go first on loyalty. Frequent fliers who fly based on non-standard factors are well studied and highly in-numerous in any single aspect.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      > shave a nickel off the ticket price and you’ll replace those people. If the concern of Boeing vs Airbus safety is really that low on the list for passengers we really shouldn't have anything else to talk about or regulate. The accidents and issues are well publicized, if people just don't care do we really need further investigations and/or regulation?
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > if people just don't care do we really need further investigations and/or regulation? We care in aggregate. At the individual level, airline ticket demand is notoriously elastic.
        _heimdall 3y ago
        How can the aggregate add up to us caring when each individual piece does not care at all? Is your point that we care in principle but don't functionally care when faced with an actual decision?
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        >Is your point that we care in principle but don't functionally care when faced with an actual decision? Yes this is basically why the only thing capitalism can do is lower prices through squeezing everything, because while large groups of people are principled and care a lot, individual humans are largely irrational (especially when it comes to risk, because the humans who accurately analyzed risk on a population scale were eaten by tigers) and fairly flexible in morals, ideology, and priorities.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > How can the aggregate add up to us caring when each individual piece does not care at at all It can’t. Where is can is where individuals care a little but don’t want to explicitly bear the cost if it if distributed only across those willing to pay for it. Most people agree cars should have seatbelts. Were seatbelts optional, and only those willing and able to pay for it could have them, far fewer people would pay for it. Which, in turn, increases the cost to each of them individually.
  - codazoda 3y ago
    I primarily fly Delta and at least part of the reason is that they don't buy the Max. Prior to the last couple years I primarily flew Southwest, who does fly the Max. That doesn't mean I'll never be shuffled to a flight run by another airline but most of the time I won't be on a Max. That said they do fly Boeing, they just don't fly the Max (or the renamed 737-8).
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      Agreed. I've always had a good experience with Delta. The only flights I ever remember having issues with in 30+ years were on other airlines. I do appreciate that Delta doesn't fly Max, and I also don't fault them for swapping planes from Airbus to Boeing on a particular flight. If I really care enough I'll have to just drive.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        I like to live dangerously, so I still only fly Southwest. Get me through the airport, cram me in the fly box as quickly as possible, burn like hell for the destination, then disgorge me there. Let's not try and pretend air travel is still fun and luxurious.
  - f1shy 3y ago
    >>Is that really the case? No company want's that kind of headlines. And YES, that ist part of the buy decision of an airline.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - cameronh90 3y ago
    I would guess it's usually secondary to the airline's reputation. Various airlines have gone bust following crashes, such as PanAm and Swissair, whereas other airlines trade on their safety record, such as Quantas. Part of that is buying planes with a good safety record and grounding any planes they believe to be unsafe. The recent Boeing crisis does seem unusual in that it seems the media focus has bypassed the airlines entirely and gone straight for Boeing, but I've not heard anyone in the real world actually change their ticket directly based on the aircraft involved. Personally, as a passenger, I'm more concerned about maintenance and pilot training, as that's far more likely to lead to my untimely death than Boeing. Even with the 737 MAX crashes... don't get me wrong here, Boeing were absolutely at fault for how they handled the MCAS system, they deserve the backlash, and caused one of the holes in the Swiss cheese that led to the crashes. However. The crash investigation reports back up that poor training and safety culture at the airlines were also major factors. Runaway trim is something they should have been able to handle, and problems had been reported on previous flights on those planes, but they didn't want to take them out of service for financial reasons. Ethiopian Air and Lion Air already had terrible safety ratings before those incidents. All this is to say, I think the bigger risk for Boeing is that good airlines will worry how their reputation would be affected by an incident, and ground or stop buying their planes. Any airline is probably two major fatal accidents in a short space of time away from bankruptcy.
    - nunez 3y ago
      PanAm was already on its way out before Lockerbie. Its entire business model was upended primarily by FAA route deregulation and upstarts like People Express, Laker and SouthWest charging substantially less for the same routes they flew, and, secondarily, by the hub and spoke model (PanAm primarily flew huge jumbos that were designed for point-to-point-to-transatlantic routes).
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      > I've not heard anyone in the real world actually change their ticket directly based on the aircraft involved. Interesting that you went absolute here when my GP comment actually called out that I picked a flight specifically to avoid Boeing planes. I wasn't aware of the change after I booked so I didn't change my flight, but I did pay slightly more when to book on Airbus.
  - galleywest200 3y ago
    You can see which plane you are going to ride when you book a ticket via several modern apps these days. You absolutely can choose not to buy a ticket for a plane type you wish to avoid.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      None of the relevant contracts allow for you to specify the plane. If you buy a ticket for "an airbus A350" and show up and they ask you to board a 737, if you refuse, you are the one breaking the contract, and the airline does not have to compensate you in any way. Right now a significant majority of all flights happen on the exact model of aircraft the ticket mentioned, but if people start choosing not to fly on boeings, you can rest assured that airlines will start to move planes around so that their expensive planes still make money. If you want to be guaranteed the plane you signed up for, we need new regulation. That is not a right anyone has currently.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      I think I mentioned this in the GP comment, but that's exactly what I did recently. I booked a flight scheduled to be on Airbus planes but there's no guarantee there. Mt return flight was changed after I booked to be on Boeing planes. Booking a ticket is just a commitment for them to get you to/from specific destinations on time, if possible. Showing the plane scheduled for the flight is helpful for picking seats but its definitely no guarantee. My wife actually got stuck in DC over night once when they decided they wanted to use a smaller plane. No mechanical issues, I assume they just needed to move the plane for the first flight the next morning and they decided to bump a few passengers off the flight.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    They did do something wrong because you paid for a service and they did not provide it. Unfortunately to defend that contract you would probably have to decline the substitution plane and sue for expenses incurred because of that. They know nobody will put in that effort.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      The service under contract is travel from one airport to another on an expected schedule. They do best effort to fulfil that but are under absolutely no commitment to the exact model of plane used.
  - marssaxman 3y ago
    I may not have any control over which plane I have to fly on, but I sure felt better yesterday when an ordinary 737 pulled up to my departure gate, no winglets or serrated engine covers to be seen.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  Why do you think defense revenues and profits don't matter? Not sure you'd want to lose either part of the business.
  - lenerdenator 3y ago
    A lot of Boeing's defense revenues come from military aircraft that are based on civilian airliners.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Are you saying the cost etc. allocations in Boeing are underrepresenting the importance of commercial? Not quite sure I understand.
      - lenerdenator 3y ago
        They might be. They've been struggling to deal with the threat from Airbus for a decade or two now, and that means there's less of a guarantee their capital allocations to commercial planes will produce a profit. There's still quite a few brass in the US military who came of age in the immediate post-Vietnam era and remember the BUFFs being the core of the US bomber fleet, and will subconsciously favor Boeing over anything else. That means a better (though not guaranteed) likelihood of winning a contract. The issue is, a lot of their offerings for things like tankers, AWACS, general transport, VIP transit, etc. are based on airliners.
        dunmalg 3y ago
        Airbus is a threat, but they have a huge obstacle Boeing doesn't: they don't build planes in the US except for the A319-320-321. Any defense contract won with an Airbus airframe as its basis (e.g. NG's KC-X submission based on the Airbus A330 MRTT) also includes the expense and possible difficulty building a factory in the US to manufacture them. Boeing may have a bad reputation for screwing up manufacturing, but that's a known quantity vs. the giant question mark that is the quality of a theoretical Airbus factory--- run by a US defense contractor rather than Airbus--- that hasn't been built.
dtnewman 3y ago
And to echo @lenerdenator, commercial is the largest and most iconic segment as well
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  It's roughly about half by revenue, I think. On iconic not sure how much that matters ultimately.

For better or worse, the commercial side is what matters. If an F-15 has a wing disintegrate in flight, we might hear a blurb about it on the news and maybe a pilot and a few people on the ground die. Tragic, but it's not a blow to the confidence in air travel. If something happens with a 737, there's hundreds of deaths, the public won't get on that plane, the FAA and NTSB release extensive reports, and the backlog for aircraft gets even longer for airlines. Another company sucked dry by business school vampires.

_heimdall 3y ago
> the public won't get on that plane Is that really the case? I've never been given the ability to pick the aircraft when flying. I traveled last month for a wedding and made it a point to book a flight scheduled for Airbus planes. Turns out the return trip was changed and I flew Boeing on the way back. Delta didn't do anything wrong there, I just have no say in what plane I book a ticket for.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Is that really the case? In extremis, yes. In practice, no–shave a nickel off the ticket price and you’ll replace those people. The purchaser with power is the airline. And even they mostly lean into safety due to the financial cost of cancellations and grounding. Regulators, not markets, make flying safe.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    > ... shave a nickel off the ticket price and you’ll replace those people. While it's possible that's true, doing that is also gifting those customers to your competitors. So there's another dynamic there to consider as well. ;)
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > that is also gifting those customers to your competitors To zero practical extent, particularly when you weight for frequent fliers. Most consumers pick the cheapest ticket. Those who don’t go first on loyalty. Frequent fliers who fly based on non-standard factors are well studied and highly in-numerous in any single aspect.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    > shave a nickel off the ticket price and you’ll replace those people. If the concern of Boeing vs Airbus safety is really that low on the list for passengers we really shouldn't have anything else to talk about or regulate. The accidents and issues are well publicized, if people just don't care do we really need further investigations and/or regulation?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > if people just don't care do we really need further investigations and/or regulation? We care in aggregate. At the individual level, airline ticket demand is notoriously elastic.
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        How can the aggregate add up to us caring when each individual piece does not care at all? Is your point that we care in principle but don't functionally care when faced with an actual decision?
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        >Is your point that we care in principle but don't functionally care when faced with an actual decision? Yes this is basically why the only thing capitalism can do is lower prices through squeezing everything, because while large groups of people are principled and care a lot, individual humans are largely irrational (especially when it comes to risk, because the humans who accurately analyzed risk on a population scale were eaten by tigers) and fairly flexible in morals, ideology, and priorities.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > How can the aggregate add up to us caring when each individual piece does not care at at all It can’t. Where is can is where individuals care a little but don’t want to explicitly bear the cost if it if distributed only across those willing to pay for it. Most people agree cars should have seatbelts. Were seatbelts optional, and only those willing and able to pay for it could have them, far fewer people would pay for it. Which, in turn, increases the cost to each of them individually.
- codazoda 3y ago
  I primarily fly Delta and at least part of the reason is that they don't buy the Max. Prior to the last couple years I primarily flew Southwest, who does fly the Max. That doesn't mean I'll never be shuffled to a flight run by another airline but most of the time I won't be on a Max. That said they do fly Boeing, they just don't fly the Max (or the renamed 737-8).
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    Agreed. I've always had a good experience with Delta. The only flights I ever remember having issues with in 30+ years were on other airlines. I do appreciate that Delta doesn't fly Max, and I also don't fault them for swapping planes from Airbus to Boeing on a particular flight. If I really care enough I'll have to just drive.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      I like to live dangerously, so I still only fly Southwest. Get me through the airport, cram me in the fly box as quickly as possible, burn like hell for the destination, then disgorge me there. Let's not try and pretend air travel is still fun and luxurious.
- f1shy 3y ago
  >>Is that really the case? No company want's that kind of headlines. And YES, that ist part of the buy decision of an airline.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- cameronh90 3y ago
  I would guess it's usually secondary to the airline's reputation. Various airlines have gone bust following crashes, such as PanAm and Swissair, whereas other airlines trade on their safety record, such as Quantas. Part of that is buying planes with a good safety record and grounding any planes they believe to be unsafe. The recent Boeing crisis does seem unusual in that it seems the media focus has bypassed the airlines entirely and gone straight for Boeing, but I've not heard anyone in the real world actually change their ticket directly based on the aircraft involved. Personally, as a passenger, I'm more concerned about maintenance and pilot training, as that's far more likely to lead to my untimely death than Boeing. Even with the 737 MAX crashes... don't get me wrong here, Boeing were absolutely at fault for how they handled the MCAS system, they deserve the backlash, and caused one of the holes in the Swiss cheese that led to the crashes. However. The crash investigation reports back up that poor training and safety culture at the airlines were also major factors. Runaway trim is something they should have been able to handle, and problems had been reported on previous flights on those planes, but they didn't want to take them out of service for financial reasons. Ethiopian Air and Lion Air already had terrible safety ratings before those incidents. All this is to say, I think the bigger risk for Boeing is that good airlines will worry how their reputation would be affected by an incident, and ground or stop buying their planes. Any airline is probably two major fatal accidents in a short space of time away from bankruptcy.
  - nunez 3y ago
    PanAm was already on its way out before Lockerbie. Its entire business model was upended primarily by FAA route deregulation and upstarts like People Express, Laker and SouthWest charging substantially less for the same routes they flew, and, secondarily, by the hub and spoke model (PanAm primarily flew huge jumbos that were designed for point-to-point-to-transatlantic routes).
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    > I've not heard anyone in the real world actually change their ticket directly based on the aircraft involved. Interesting that you went absolute here when my GP comment actually called out that I picked a flight specifically to avoid Boeing planes. I wasn't aware of the change after I booked so I didn't change my flight, but I did pay slightly more when to book on Airbus.
- galleywest200 3y ago
  You can see which plane you are going to ride when you book a ticket via several modern apps these days. You absolutely can choose not to buy a ticket for a plane type you wish to avoid.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    None of the relevant contracts allow for you to specify the plane. If you buy a ticket for "an airbus A350" and show up and they ask you to board a 737, if you refuse, you are the one breaking the contract, and the airline does not have to compensate you in any way. Right now a significant majority of all flights happen on the exact model of aircraft the ticket mentioned, but if people start choosing not to fly on boeings, you can rest assured that airlines will start to move planes around so that their expensive planes still make money. If you want to be guaranteed the plane you signed up for, we need new regulation. That is not a right anyone has currently.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    I think I mentioned this in the GP comment, but that's exactly what I did recently. I booked a flight scheduled to be on Airbus planes but there's no guarantee there. Mt return flight was changed after I booked to be on Boeing planes. Booking a ticket is just a commitment for them to get you to/from specific destinations on time, if possible. Showing the plane scheduled for the flight is helpful for picking seats but its definitely no guarantee. My wife actually got stuck in DC over night once when they decided they wanted to use a smaller plane. No mechanical issues, I assume they just needed to move the plane for the first flight the next morning and they decided to bump a few passengers off the flight.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  They did do something wrong because you paid for a service and they did not provide it. Unfortunately to defend that contract you would probably have to decline the substitution plane and sue for expenses incurred because of that. They know nobody will put in that effort.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    The service under contract is travel from one airport to another on an expected schedule. They do best effort to fulfil that but are under absolutely no commitment to the exact model of plane used.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  I may not have any control over which plane I have to fly on, but I sure felt better yesterday when an ordinary 737 pulled up to my departure gate, no winglets or serrated engine covers to be seen.
RandomLensman 3y ago
Why do you think defense revenues and profits don't matter? Not sure you'd want to lose either part of the business.
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  A lot of Boeing's defense revenues come from military aircraft that are based on civilian airliners.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    Are you saying the cost etc. allocations in Boeing are underrepresenting the importance of commercial? Not quite sure I understand.
    - lenerdenator 3y ago
      They might be. They've been struggling to deal with the threat from Airbus for a decade or two now, and that means there's less of a guarantee their capital allocations to commercial planes will produce a profit. There's still quite a few brass in the US military who came of age in the immediate post-Vietnam era and remember the BUFFs being the core of the US bomber fleet, and will subconsciously favor Boeing over anything else. That means a better (though not guaranteed) likelihood of winning a contract. The issue is, a lot of their offerings for things like tankers, AWACS, general transport, VIP transit, etc. are based on airliners.
      - dunmalg 3y ago
        Airbus is a threat, but they have a huge obstacle Boeing doesn't: they don't build planes in the US except for the A319-320-321. Any defense contract won with an Airbus airframe as its basis (e.g. NG's KC-X submission based on the Airbus A330 MRTT) also includes the expense and possible difficulty building a factory in the US to manufacture them. Boeing may have a bad reputation for screwing up manufacturing, but that's a known quantity vs. the giant question mark that is the quality of a theoretical Airbus factory--- run by a US defense contractor rather than Airbus--- that hasn't been built.

dtnewman 3y ago

And to echo @lenerdenator, commercial is the largest and most iconic segment as well

RandomLensman 3y ago
It's roughly about half by revenue, I think. On iconic not sure how much that matters ultimately.