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Boeing's largest plant in 'panic mode' amid safety crisis, say workers and union
- TulliusCicero 2y ago> Boeing’s largest factory is in “panic mode”, according to workers and union officials, with managers accused of hounding staff to keep quiet over quality concerns. They're fixing the glitch!
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- lifeinthevoid 2y agoI’m surprised the stock isn’t doing worse than it is doing currently TBH.
- Rinzler89 2y agoThey're a major defense contractor, that's why.
- nickff 2y agoMany of their defense projects haven’t been going well (notably space launch, refueling tanker, and jet trainer).
- Rinzler89 2y agoDoes it matter? Where else is the US military gonna go to instead? Airbus?
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- nickff 2y agoLockheed Martin made and still supports the C-5 Galaxy, and Northrop Grumman is making the B-21, so both of those manufacturers (at least) are quite capable of manufacturing large aircraft.
- passwordoops 2y agoIt's still a blue chip with either monopoly or cartel control over their relevant markets. Until the government acts in a direction that would break up that scenario, you can expect the stock to continue its good performance
- greentxt 2y agoGood performance is a stretch. It's down 15% on the 1yr and 50% in the 5yr. Arguably it's a safe buy right now, but that's because, given what you say, it is unlikely to fall further. At least under the current administration.
- Havoc 2y agoUS won't let its main player in the airliner space go down no matter how many people they kill with their negligence. The stock market knows this.
- chinathrow 2y agoWhile this is certainly true right now, the clients will eventually revolt and go elsewhere.
- quickthrowman 2y agoWhere? The only other option is Airbus. I would never board a Comac aircraft.
- kergonath 2y agoAnd Airbus has quite a long backlog…
- throwup238 2y agoBoth of them have ridiculous backlogs. The A320 family has yet to deliver ~7,000 jets out of ~18,000 ordered, and the 737 Max family has only delivered 1,500 jets out of 6,270 orders. At this point if you're an airline that has to put in a new order, you're not going to see the new jets for close to a decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A320_orders_and_deliveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A320_orders_and... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_...
- bobthepanda 2y agoIIRC this is the real reason why JetBlue is trying to buy Spirit. They have wildly incompatible business models, but they both operate the same single aircraft type.
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- quickthrowman 2y agoAirbus is their only competitor in the civilian market. The US Government has actively destroyed companies that attempt to compete with Boeing [0]. They’re also one of the top 5 prime contractors in the defense industry. There is no possible way the US lets its sole domestic airplane manufacturer go bust. I would speculate that the government wouldn’t even want to chance a Boeing bankruptcy. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Boeing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_... I’m just a dumb guy who works in construction, if I know the above, then the market definitely knows it.
- nickff 2y agoBoeing is not the only US airplane manufacturer, it is the only commercial airplane (airliner) manufacturer.
- quickthrowman 2y agoIf someone refers to Boeing as the sole domestic airplane manufacturer, I would assume they also know that Cessna exists but are referring to the Boeing/Airbus duopoly.
- nickff 2y agoI’ve never heard anyone else mention Boeing as “the sole domestic airplane manufacturer”, given that Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are still around. I follow aviation quite closely, and the trade magazines are always quite clear on this sort of thing.
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- eastbound 2y agoI would say it’s the international repercussions that put pressure: - Boeing’s home customers don’t really have a choice, - European customers really have an incentive to switch, even possibly Ryanair, since Boeing is a laughing stock and planes-that-are-losing-doors are a meme for internet-oriented people in Europe, - But it also has an impact on diplomacy and on american hegemony when everyone turns away from them for industrial competence. And it’s rather the loss of the leadership of the role of the world’s safety organization of the FAA, when it was only the European safety organization who halted this nonsense.
- xyst 2y agoIt will be a slow death.
- raverbashing 2y ago> “There is no way in God’s green earth I would want to be a pilot in South Carolina flying those from South Carolina to here,” the mechanic, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, told the Guardian. “Because when they get in here, we’re stripping them apart.” And of course, it's the Washington plant that's worried. Company culture is more important than the MBAs would have you believe
- toomuchtodo 2y agoCompany culture externalities take too long to catch up to quarterly numbers. Have to tighten the consequence loop.
- hiddencost 2y agoThis is called a "union" where I come from.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoTrue story.
- passwordoops 2y agoNot to mention expertise and experience
- tamimio 2y ago‘If it’s Boeing, I ain’t going,’ was the decision and last line my friend said when he was planning his travel the other day, and I was playing devil’s advocate with him. But deep down, I would not recommend to anyone I know to fly on Boeing anymore, including myself. So now, in addition to the cost, bags, and stops, I will be checking if the plane is Boeing and trying to find an alternative.
- greentxt 2y agoIs that possible? Don't the airlines swap planes at the last minute?
- llamaimperative 2y agoObviously it's not possible to guarantee but it's definitely possible to reduce your chances of being on a Boeing aircraft.
- largbae 2y agoIt is not perfect, but most airlines will try not to swap plane models as it breaks all the seating assignments. I think the older Boeing planes through 737-900 are as safe as ever. 737-MAX+ and 787 seem to be where the design process went awry. Even then, there seem to be known workarounds to the bugs. For what it's worth, I still fly on them all, I just remember to tell my family I love them before takeoff when the safety card has MAX on the label.
- throwup238 2y ago> For what it's worth, I still fly on them all, I just remember to tell my family I love them before takeoff when the safety card has MAX on the label. That’s Boeing’s new business. Bringing families together by threatening them with death by giant fireball!
- tamimio 2y agoIf you go to the airline website (or even other booking sites) and click on details you can see the flight, operator, and the aircraft. In fact, some websites (I think kayak) can even filter by including or excluding aircraft specific models. In worst cases, you might need to know the aircraft from the seat map. From my experience they rarely change what’s the aircraft, if they had it written, most likely it is the aircraft that you will fly with.
- adolph 2y agoThat it is just now “in panic mode” is indicative of the root issue.
- TheBlight 2y agoI have no idea what's going on but it feels to me like this somewhat recent popular media anti-Boeing campaign isn't strictly organic.
- Angostura 2y agoFeels pretty organic to me. Things falling off planes and whistleblowers alleging coverup generate organic interest
- TheBlight 2y agoMaybe it is to some extent but I'm seeing a more general pattern wrt commercial air travel coverage. There's the turbulence stories and the "near collision" stories. It's possible every aspect of the air travel system is breaking down in real-time I suppose. But it's also possible there is some sort of agenda at work and its promoters are leveraging anything they can find.
- tetris11 2y agoThe only ones I can see who would stand to win in such a conspiracy would be Airbus, but they were already winning with or without Boeing.
- TheBlight 2y agoI don't know that a canonical conspiracy is required. I could imagine an emergent symbiosis of different parties. Eg. The media likes clicks and some NGOs don't like air travel. I'm not saying this is the case just that it might be slightly more complex than what it appears on face.
- krisoft 2y ago> it's also possible there is some sort of agenda at work Please tell us more.
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- RedShift1 2y agoThe chickens are coming home to roost. Unfortunately those that sent the chickens on their way have made bank and bailed out already.
- rurban 2y agoStill the wrong place. Not the plant should be in panic mode, management in Chicago should be. It's their fault at least. Hope the law suite will be coming
- xbar 2y agoAnother story which lays the enshitification culture at the feet of McDonnell Douglas.
- hilbert42 2y agoI've just reread this article and it's very good in parts. All the essence about what's gone wrong at Boeing is there but you have to read between the lines a little to extract it all (but it's all there). But here I don't want to dwell on the broader issues of why Boeing's in trouble. Instead I've copied a section from the article that quotes a Boeing mechanic who clearly knows what he's talking about. What he says hits the nail exactly on the head. He hones in what I believe is wrong with the management of many Western companies today and it's not just Boeing, unfortunately. Simply, there are too many middle and upper managers—usually Harvard/uni types—who don't have a fucking clue—who don't know one end of a screwdriver from another and they're the ones running companies nowadays. These useless bastards only get in the way. Now I'm not decrying all uni types for the sake of it (as I'm one), but you'll find many of the best engineers and other professionals often have good trade skills or hands-on experience and they know how to get their hands dirty just like everyone else in the skilled workforce. What Boeing's mechanic says in the last paragraph is just so fucking correct that it ought to be etched in stone and put up on a public monument: "…Some veteran union employees at Boeing draw a link between its current issues and a move by the company more than two decades ago to introduce “team leader” managers, replacing a previous system whereby the most senior, experienced factory workers were in charge. “The team leader isn’t picked by his skill on the airplane – he is picked by his relationship with another manager or another person,” said the mechanic. “Now we don’t have team leads who know what’s up.” Today, the managers “doing the thinking have never done physical labor before”, they added. “There’s no way you can learn how to build an airplane in a school on the third floor. There are a lot of things you can learn in the classroom, but building an airplane is not one of them.””
- Hock88sdx 2y ago[dead]