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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Boeing Co. lost a deal for 737 MAX jetliners in one of the first tangible signs the crisis around the plane could shift business to European rival Airbus.
Saudi Arabia’s "flyadeal" airline said on Sunday that it would buy up to 50 Airbus A320neo planes, the direct rival to Boeing’s MAX that has been idled globally in the wake of two crashes within less than five months.
The deal between the discount arm of flag carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines Corp., or Saudia, has a value of more than $5.5 billion, based on Airbus list prices that don’t include industry-standard discounts.
The airline, which was launched in September 2017 using Airbus A320 single-aisle planes, last December made a commitment to buy the MAX. The deal came only weeks after a MAX, operated by Indonesian budget airline Lion Air, crashed, killing all 189 aboard. The Saudi commitment for up to 50 MAX jets had a value of $5.9 billion before industry-standard discounts, Boeing said at the time, but it was never formally concluded.
Flyadeal couldn’t be reached for comment about why it abandoned the MAX. The airline said it would receive the first A320neo—a more fuel efficient model than the Airbus plane it now operates—in 2021. The jets are part of an order of 100 aircraft Saudia and Airbus announced last month at the Paris Air Show, the aerospace industry’s flagship event where big plane deals typically are announced.
Boeing’s MAX deliveries have been frozen since about mid-March following a second crash of one of the jets, in Ethiopia. Similarities between the two MAX crashes sparked global safety concerns. Boeing’s plans to fix the plane have encountered delays. Boeing now hopes to submit the fix to regulators in September to get the fleet back into airline service.
Analysts estimate it could take several years to get MAX deliveries back on plan. Hundreds of planes are sitting idle with airlines, more have been built but not yet delivered and Boeing also slowed MAX production in April, effectively delaying future deliveries to some customers.
Boeing used last month’s gathering outside Paris to announce a blockbuster order for 200 MAX planes from British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group SA . It was the first deal for the planes in months and widely regarded as an important vote of confidence in the MAX by a globally recognized carrier.
Airbus officials have played down the idea the Toulouse, France-based plane maker would win business from Boeing’s woes. Airbus is mostly sold out of A320neo jets until 2024. But the flyadeal arrangement shows the plane maker can find ways to satisfy nearer-term demand.
Airbus is poised to overtake Boeing this year as the world’s largest plane maker after the U.S. aerospace giant cut 737 production rates.
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved.
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Here’s the original thread from last May. I’m grateful to so many who contributed so much to this thread. Reads like a damned encyclopedia on the 737 / 737-Max and related problems. Thanks to everyone.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/48196/737-max-second-deadly-crash-china-grounds-plane-others-follow-suit-faa-finally-grounds-jet/p7
"Saudi Arabia’s "flyadeal" airline said on Sunday that it would buy up to 50 Airbus A320neo planes, the direct rival to Boeing’s MAX that has been idled globally in the wake of two crashes within less than five months.
It's nice to see that our Saudi ass-kissing is paying good dividends."
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Really? BA apparently put out a product designed to operate at 30,000 ft (an airplane) which was defective in one or more ways, resulting in the deaths of 2 planeloads of human beings. BA is now apparently, belatedly, performing due diligence to fix the problem. But those planeloads of people are dead. Our governing agency (the FAA) whose job it is to regulate/oversee BA seems to have been "in cahoots" initially in claiming BA was not at fault --- contrary to what other country oversight suspected, and have now been proven correct.
I think the Saudis are despicable barbarians generally. But in this case, their airline regulators are making the right call. OTOH, BA seems to have put "profits ahead of people" in this affair, with a "wink wink" from US regulators.
Ever since, I have wondered about the quality/reliability of the software in these planes.
(Picture the pilot going: where are those ctl+alt+del keys?)
Reading about the problems in the N. Carolina plant leads me to wonder about any Boeing jet, or at least any jet assembled there.
Apparently some workmanship issues were obvious enough that years ago Qatar Airways stopped taking delivery of Dreamliners unless they were assembled in Everett, Wash.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3007049/boeing-defends-its-dreamliner-plant-north-carolina
You can't do this s*** with real engineering. Certain things can't have "apps". And we shouldn't. Let's please wipe our own a**. No robot is touching me.
"Engineering", "Analysis" (notice I didn't capitalize the first 4 letters this time), and otherwise "Intellect" is of short supply these days. Most "coders" (sic) will fail IQ test. Anyone wants to prove me wrong, just do it. Try making IQ of 120 a criteria for employment in IT industry. When every company calls themselves a "technology company" we are seeing the end of the world. IT (sic) has already started.
These conservative inclinations of management provide part of the explanation of why "70% to 80% of UK plc business transactions are still based on Cobol" (as of a decade ago, The Guardian), and "In the US, around 80 percent of in-person transactions and 95 percent of ATM swipes are based on programs written in COBOL" (TheNextWeb, 2017).
See also: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/legacy-issues-200-times-more-cobol-transactions-today-than-google-searches
Few developers like maintenance. They'd rather build something new, of course using the technology of the day. Still, the selection of the appropriate modern technology should result in a better product.
Deciding the path to take is, or should be, a balancing act, a weighing of the risks of a new design and implementation against the gradual decay of an existing code base. What I've told others is to take the time to understand the existing system (note: "system", not "app'). Then make changes. If you still can't figure out how it works, tear it out and start over. Don't guess and make quick fixes that you hope won't break something somewhere else.