My point is, the issue at Boeing is at Boeing, not the individual divisions. Divesting one division aint going to fix jack shit.

Well, yes they did have some issues with the barrels, but it never resulted in a delay - that was already covered because of the issues with the fasteners.

I keep mentioning it in this thread, but its hard to overstate how much of a disaster for the 787 the decision to use non-aviation grade fasteners was. It led to massive rework, and later on it led to cracking and improperly replaced fasteners that had to be rectified. Larger replacement fasteners had to be used which meant more weight

Boeing also wasnt going into this blind - they had massive experience with CFRP from both the 777, Sonic Cruiser and various military contracts. None of the “new” technologies was actually new to them.

None of the big issues the 787 saw was due to the technology used.

Every issue the 787 saw was because of a management or failure of engineering decision.

It was a management decision to hit 7/8/7 at all cost.

It was a management decision to use Home Depot fasteners.

Lax QA was the cause of the subsequent fastener drilling issues. Lax QA is a management issue.

There are very very few issues with the 787 hat can be traced back to the tech used - CFRP had been widely used in the industry up to that point, and Boeing only had a few issues with their new CFRP barrel fuselage design and construction, the bulk of the issues were caused by management decisions.

Because their space and military arms are going so well right now?

Its not that Boeing wont.

Its that they cant.

Without ceding the narrowbody market pretty much entirely to Airbus for a decade.

The main component of an aircraft’s efficiency these days is the engine, it makes up the most efficiency savings when a new model is launched - hence the NEO and MAX, both with minimal changes but both with a new engine.

So Boeing decides to do a cleansheet 737 replacement - thats $20Billion committed.

Problem is, Airbus can use the same engine, or at least engine generation, on the A320 family for a development cost of only $2Billion.

The 737-replacement might be, excluding the engine, 3% or 4% more efficient than the A320, but Airbus only has to recoup 10% of the costs Boeing would have to, so Airbus sells the plane for cheaper and still takes most of the market at a profit.

If Airbus needs more, the A320 hasnt had a new wing since the 1980s, theres scope for a new wing to bring efficiency savings there as well. Now we are up to $10Billion and the aircraft are pretty much on par. Airbus still sells their aircraft cheaper and still takes the market at a profit.

Boeings problem with the 737 isnt that its an old design, its that its a design with limitations that needs to be worked around. The MCAS issue is entirely based around the issue of putting a large engine under a low wing - Boeing looked into raising the height of the undercarriage to fit the engine more conventionally but it cost too much in comparison to the A320NEO.

Airbus meanwhile still has massive development potential in the A320 design - so until Airbus pulls the trigger on a cleansheet replacement, Boeing cant either, because Boeing will lose if they do.

And just to add o this, the 787 has seen more than 1,100 aircraft delivered and Boeing is still yet to see a profit from it - as of the middle of 2023, Boeing is still $12Billion underwater on the 787 development costs.

A normal aircraft launch will see the development back in the green by the time 300 or so aircraft have been delivered.

The 787 wont be back in the green by the time its current order book of another 800 planes is delivered.

While I agree that the 787 as a final product is a good one, its development was a disaster.

Rolling out an empty shell held together by temporary fasteners that were not aviation grade, just to hit a 7/8/7 date. That alone put first flight back by many months.

Then the subsequent fastener problems, multiple times.

Then the side of body engineering issue.

Then the battery issues.

Because of the huge issues in those first 20 airframes, Boeing had to write off its development airframes - this is something it had never ever had to do previously (it famously leant on the fact that all its airframes were delivered to customers, including the ones used to certify the type) and severely mark down the next 16 because they were so far from spec that customers had weight and maintenance issues.

Just to show how lopsided it is, the A321NEO variant on its own has outsold the entire MAX range.

Do they?

I had my iPhone still on the UK app store for a good 2-3 years after I moved to NZ, never experienced any difference in behaviour.

As I said, "major".

All of the Boeing ones I cite are type groundings mandated by aviation authorities, none of the ones you cite are (they relate to specific aircraft or sub-types of aircraft) or aren't even mandated groundings at all (the A320NEO one you cite is an example of that, its aircraft being grounded as a result of not having engines because the engines are being inspected, not a mandated grounding of the type to do the inspection), so Im happy with my post.

The 2002 one is interesting because its American Airlines asking the FAA to ground the aircraft, when in fact the NTSB found that the issue was due to pilot training by AA... AA wanted Airbus to take full responsibility for the crash (ie take on the PR damage and costs) and Airbus refused. As a result, AA and Airbus didnt do business again for another 13 years or so.

The Qatar one is even more interesting because it was a grounding by the Qatari authority but the authority refused to provide its grounding report to Airbus - there was a whole lawsuit between Qatar and Airbus over this, during which Airbus absolutely destroyed Qatars arguments and position. Ultimately, Qatar retracted the lawsuit and settled with Airbus out of court - but Qatar got none of what it was asking for.

If you look further back into the Qatar history, its even more convoluted - it started when Covid hit and airlines grounded aircraft because of lack of ability to fly anywhere. Qatar started to refuse deliveries from Airbus and wanted Airbus to take full cost of those aircraft until Qatar would take them - Airbus refused, and ultimately forced Qatar to take their orders. And miraculously suddenly all Qatari A350s are grounded with Qatar demanding full compensation for lost revenue during the grounding...

Qatar stopped paying Airbus progress payments on its orders.

Airbus cancelled Qatars orders, including an A320NEO order which Qatar fought and lost in court. This was a huge loss for Qatar because they needed the capacity and couldnt get it anywhere else. Meanwhile, Airbus sold the undelivered A350s and A320s almost instantly.

So yeah, dont hold the Qatar grounding up as an example, its not :)

Unfortunately, Boeing and Airbus issues are not comparable here.

Out of the two main manufacturers, Boeing is the one that has seen 4 major groundings of its aircraft since the 1980s (the 737 Classic in 1989, the 787 in 2013, the MAX in 2019 and 2024), while Airbus has had none.

British Airways was government owned until 1987, so your dates are quite off.

Concorde was operated by BA between 1976 and 1983 under an operating cost lease from the British government - however, BA paid full price for the original orders, and received unsold airframes at a reduced cost. When BA was privatised in 1987, no further

By 1981, Concorde was making a $4Million a year operating profit on the London-New York route - 80% of which was returned to the British government under the lease agreement. So it was making a decent operating profit even when being run as a prestige project.

In 1983 the British government wanted to end the lease agreement, grounding Concorde - the management of British Airways at that time disagreed, and paid the government off to allow the lease to expire and assumed full operating costs for Concorde at that point in time. And became even more profitable as a result.

Concorde was a British government (and French government) project - why should British Airways have to pay for the development costs?

Only reason the previous story was about the Max 7 and not the Max 9 is because the Max 9 is already exempted due to the time limit in the regulation - Boeing fucked up with the Max 7 development, pushing it beyond the cut off period and thus it falls under the regulation rather than automatically having an exemption.

Concorde not making airlines money was largely a myth - from about 1990 to its retirement, it was one of British Airways best profit centres. Before then, British Airways was still operating under the agreements which carried over from when they were publicly owned, and Concorde was operated as a prestige thing first, revenue source second - when those agreements expired, BA jacked up the prices and found that their customer base didn't really notice, so operating Concorde became profitable.

What people miss here is that the retailers are already responsible for a lot of this sort of thing, and it hasnt made UK price’s ruinously expensive, so this wont either.

For example, our warranties here are “if it develops a fault in the first X years, the retailer you bought it from fixes it or replaces it”. Not the manufacturer, the retailer.

Much easier to deal with the entity you had a direct relationship with.