5 ms·

It is amazing to me how much grief could have been avoided if Boeing had committed to the 757 instead of the 737. Almost every operator who is using large 737s

It is amazing to me how much grief could have been avoided if Boeing had committed to the 757 instead of the 737. Almost every operator who is using large 737s is using ramps and lift buses to access the aircraft, obviating the need to fill a large aircraft from a short staircase. Training pilots once to use 757s would have been a small expense compared to the risk that the entire Boeing brand is destroyed. And, the 757 could probably have stayed competitive with Airbus. Was all this craziness due to some business magazine article about Southwest Airlines doing so well because they only had one major type of aircraft?

sofixa 2y ago
Southwest and Ryanair, two of the biggest airlines in the world, are exclusively 737. It allows them to keep maintenance and flight crew costs low, and they were the primary forces insisting on Boeing improving a design which is beyond its limits. They'll kick the can down the road for as long as they can.
- projektfu 2y ago
  Did Southwest sell off all the 717s when they bought AirTran? I haven't flown SWA in a long time.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    According to Wikipedia: > Southwest integrated AirTran's fleet of Boeing 737-700 series aircraft into Southwest Airlines brand and livery, and the Boeing 717 fleet was then leased out to Delta Air Lines starting in mid-2013 Same as Alaska Airlines getting rid of the A320s they got by acquiring Virgin America. (Although they're in the same predicament again by acquiring Hawaiian).
gosub100 2y ago
I'm sure they considered it. Can a '57 fit in every airport (runway length, gate size, or base altitude) that a '37 can? What about engines? Would any engine maker have been able to deliver revamped '57 engines when they have been mostly focusing on other models?
xenadu02 2y ago
Some of Boeing's large customers would only commit to buying 737s if the update did not require training or updating the type rating. The 737 was originally so low to the ground to enable it to use air stairs and operate at airports without jet bridges (most airports at the time of its introduction). Not sure anyone could predict engine efficiency would require engines so much larger they wouldn't really fit on the 737. Not that this matters much since they ended the 757 in 2004. We can't really know what would have happened but it is possible introducing a telescoping landing gear system to let the 757 MAX sit higher off the ground would have avoided all of these problems. The engines could have remained at their actual design location meaning no need for MCAS. The failure mode would be failure to retract landing gear if the telescoping system failed... rather than uncommanded pitch changes. A simpler failure mode with less risk. None of this would have helped with Boeing's current problem (and a problem that plagued the 787 too): splitting off bits of the company and massive outsourcing to screw labor as hard as possible. Folks don't seem to remember the 787 was a huge fiasco because Boeing outsourced so much of that aircraft and their vendors were unable to deliver parts on the required timelines, at the required quality, or in the required quantity. Boeing ended up having to buy a bunch of them to bring work back in-house to rescue the program. Spirit Aerosystems was just the same strategy: outsource construction of the airframe (!!) by spinning off that department as a separate company so they could easily squeeze their now-vendor which would by design turn around and squeeze the employees. Kick them out of the Boeing retirement plan, cut benefits and pay, etc. Is anyone surprised Spirit filled positions with the cheapest bodies they could find? Think about the whole door fiasco: the ticket filed by Boeing QA was initially closed by the Spirit people basically doing nothing and hoping QA would just close the ticket without checking. That behavior didn't raise any alarms within Boeing indicating it was normal behavior by that point.
- berniedurfee 2y ago
  “… splitting off bits of the company and massive outsourcing to screw labor as hard as possible.” I think that’s the key point. I don’t think Boeing could have built _any_ aircraft successfully with that business strategy and culture. If not MCAS, it would have been something else.

sofixa 2y ago

Southwest and Ryanair, two of the biggest airlines in the world, are exclusively 737. It allows them to keep maintenance and flight crew costs low, and they were the primary forces insisting on Boeing improving a design which is beyond its limits. They'll kick the can down the road for as long as they can.

projektfu 2y ago
Did Southwest sell off all the 717s when they bought AirTran? I haven't flown SWA in a long time.
- sofixa 2y ago
  According to Wikipedia: > Southwest integrated AirTran's fleet of Boeing 737-700 series aircraft into Southwest Airlines brand and livery, and the Boeing 717 fleet was then leased out to Delta Air Lines starting in mid-2013 Same as Alaska Airlines getting rid of the A320s they got by acquiring Virgin America. (Although they're in the same predicament again by acquiring Hawaiian).

gosub100 2y ago

I'm sure they considered it. Can a '57 fit in every airport (runway length, gate size, or base altitude) that a '37 can? What about engines? Would any engine maker have been able to deliver revamped '57 engines when they have been mostly focusing on other models?

xenadu02 2y ago

Some of Boeing's large customers would only commit to buying 737s if the update did not require training or updating the type rating. The 737 was originally so low to the ground to enable it to use air stairs and operate at airports without jet bridges (most airports at the time of its introduction). Not sure anyone could predict engine efficiency would require engines so much larger they wouldn't really fit on the 737. Not that this matters much since they ended the 757 in 2004. We can't really know what would have happened but it is possible introducing a telescoping landing gear system to let the 757 MAX sit higher off the ground would have avoided all of these problems. The engines could have remained at their actual design location meaning no need for MCAS. The failure mode would be failure to retract landing gear if the telescoping system failed... rather than uncommanded pitch changes. A simpler failure mode with less risk. None of this would have helped with Boeing's current problem (and a problem that plagued the 787 too): splitting off bits of the company and massive outsourcing to screw labor as hard as possible. Folks don't seem to remember the 787 was a huge fiasco because Boeing outsourced so much of that aircraft and their vendors were unable to deliver parts on the required timelines, at the required quality, or in the required quantity. Boeing ended up having to buy a bunch of them to bring work back in-house to rescue the program. Spirit Aerosystems was just the same strategy: outsource construction of the airframe (!!) by spinning off that department as a separate company so they could easily squeeze their now-vendor which would by design turn around and squeeze the employees. Kick them out of the Boeing retirement plan, cut benefits and pay, etc. Is anyone surprised Spirit filled positions with the cheapest bodies they could find? Think about the whole door fiasco: the ticket filed by Boeing QA was initially closed by the Spirit people basically doing nothing and hoping QA would just close the ticket without checking. That behavior didn't raise any alarms within Boeing indicating it was normal behavior by that point.

berniedurfee 2y ago
“… splitting off bits of the company and massive outsourcing to screw labor as hard as possible.” I think that’s the key point. I don’t think Boeing could have built _any_ aircraft successfully with that business strategy and culture. If not MCAS, it would have been something else.