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from the Oh,-what-a-tangled-web-we-weave-when-first-we-practise-to-deceive!-(Marmion) dept.
Boeing's promised 737 Max production halt begins:
The airline manufacturer had announced last month it would stop making the troubled craft at least until it was no longer grounded, but hadn't set a date. However the line has officially stopped producing planes while Boeing officials wait for regulators to give it the OK to fly again.
[...] The latest update estimated the grounding would last through at least mid-2020, Boeing said in a statement Tuesday.
Boeing will reassign 3,000 workers after 737 MAX production halt
Boeing Co said it will reassign 3,000 workers to other jobs as it halts production of the grounded best-selling 737 MAX jet in mid-January.
The announcement came after American Airlines Group Inc and Mexico's Aeromexico disclosed they were the latest carriers to reach settlements with Boeing over losses resulting from the grounding of the 737 MAX aircraft.
Neither airline disclosed the compensation. A number of airlines have struck confidential settlements with Boeing in recent weeks. Boeing said it does not comment on discussions with airlines.
Boeing's biggest supplier lays off 2,800 workers because of 737 Max production suspension:
Spirit AeroSystems (SPR), which makes fuselages for the Max as well as other items for Boeing, announced Friday that it is furloughing approximately 2,800 workers. Shares of the Wichita, Kansas-based company fell more than 1% in trading.
"The difficult decision announced today is a necessary step given the uncertainty related to both the timing for resuming 737 Max production and the overall production levels that can be expected following the production suspension," Spirit AeroSystems CEO Tom Gentile said in a press release.
Boeing wants to resume 737 Max production months before regulators sign off on the planes:
Boeing's new CEO, Dave Calhoun, said Wednesday that he wants the company to resume production of the 737 Max months before regulators sign off on the planes and airlines prepare to return them to service.
[...] The 737 Max production shutdown has already cost thousands of jobs and raised concerns about the crisis' impact on the broader economy.
But Calhoun's comments indicate the company does not expect the production pause to last more than a few months.
"We got to get that line started up again," he said on a conference call with reporters. "And the supply chain will be reinvigorated even before that."
Trump calls Boeing 'a very disappointing company' as 737 Max crisis grows:
"Very disappointing company," Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen in an interview when asked about Boeing's new timeline. "This is one of the greatest companies of the world, let's say, as of a year ago and all of a sudden things happened."
Previously:
737 Max "Designed by Clowns"; Boeing Suppliers Affected by Production Suspension
DoJ Criminal Investigation: Boeing Test Pilot Lawyers Up, Takes the 5th
Boeing CEO Fired
Pressure on FAA to Approve its 737 Max Jets Backfires for Boeing
Boeing Will Temporarily Stop Making its 737 Max Jetliners
Boeing's 737 Max Troubles Deepen, Taking Airlines, Suppliers With It
Review of 737 Max Certification Finds Fault With Boeing and F.A.A.
American Airlines Says It Will Resume Flights With Boeing’s 737 Max Jets in January
AP Sources: Boeing Changing 737 Max Software to Use 2 Computers
Boeing Falsified Records for 787 Jet Sold to Air Canada
Boeing Pledges $100M to Families of 737 Max Crash Victims
Capt. 'Sully' Sullenberger and Boeing 737 Max News
Ralph Nader: Engineers Often the First to Notice Waste, Fraud and Safety Issues
Boeing’s Own Test Pilots Lacked Key Details Of 737 Max Flight-Control System
Boeing CEO Defends 737 Max Flight Control System
Analysis: Why FAA-Approved Emergency Procedures Failed to Save ET302
Initial Findings Put Boeing's Software at Center of Ethiopian 737 Crash
Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max Flight Makes Emergency Landing (While Carrying No Passengers)
Airline Cancels $4.9 Billion Boeing 737 MAX Order; Doomed Planes Lacked Optional Safety Features
Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 Day Before Deadly Crash
DoJ Issues Subpoenas in 737 Max Investigation
Boeing 737 Max Aircraft Grounded in the U.S. and Dozens of Other Countries
Second 737 MAX8 Airplane Crash Reinforces Speculation on Flying System Problems
Boeing 737 MAX 8 Could Enable $69 Trans-Atlantic Flights
Boeing Unveils Fourth Generation 737, Turns Two Production Lines into Three
(Score: 5, Insightful) by johaquila on Sunday January 26 2020, @07:20AM (1 child)
As bad as it is for the workers: This is exactly how it should work so that capitalism stays functional. Companies that do mad things that can't work need to be punished for it. Setting an example for the others.
And it is exactly what regularly doesn't happen when banks are about to crash due to insane speculations that predictably lead into disaster after a few profitable years. Instead, they are bailed out with taxpayer money. The banks could rely on this to happen because leading politicians know that by funneling taxpayer money into the banks they are guaranteed to get well-paid bullshit jobs with them once they have ended their political careers. This scam allows the banks to pay unrealistically high yields to wealthy investors, and profit in the process, without the risk to their existence that should normally go with that. At the point when this short-sighted strategy should normally go wrong, they get a cash injection paid for primarily by taxes.
I suspect that something similar would have happened by now under any 'normal' US president to save the jobs. Maybe we actually have Donald Trump to thank that for once, the market is actually allowed to punish a too-big-to-fail company the way it should be punished?
No doubt Boeing will get a huge money injection or something equivalent rather soon. But it will likely be too late. They are going to lose a lot of their most qualified engineers and other unreplaceable qualified people, and won't ever get them back. Even though most of them will stay in America, this creates a huge long-term competitive advantage for Airbus in addition to the current short-term one. Airbus was created by Europe to break Boeing's monopoly; now they are going to be the new monopolist.
The US has its short-sighted stock market fluctuation oriented management culture to thank for this, catalysed by what is taught in MBA courses. The US with its enormous cultural influence has been exporting this insanity to other countries for a long time, and we are seeing the resulting problems in Europe as well. But we are currently profiting from the delay with which our industries are being corrupted by this. (We see a clear contrast between how MBAs behave here and how managers with a traditional European economics degree behave.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @08:50AM
If there are other companies to take up the slack then yes, this would be an example of Capitalism and the free market at work.
Where the problem comes in is that Boeing is the only aircraft manufacturer large enough on the entire continent to support those workers. All the other manufacturers put together probably couldn't use 1/5 of those workers, which means this ruins the economy having cascade effects on other industries both obvious and not so obvious. In a properly functioning free market economy there would be enough competing vendors of aircraft to absorb a small number of those employees immediately and within a year or two absorb the rest as demand for aircraft shift from Boeing's failing business to their smaller but safer competitors who in turn would either have the preorders to expand on their own or have the investment interest to recieve capital to expand their production using the best of the excess Boeing/Spirit Aerosystems employees (Or Spirit itself wouldn't be laying people off because they would simply shift fuselage production to one of the many other competitors now in demand for more of them.)
Instead thanks to regulatory capture and pork barrel funding by the military-industrial complex, Boeing has gotten to spend too long resting on its laurels became too big thanks to mergers and acquisitions and has finally begun its implosion, which in a free market would lead to it collapsing into a much smaller entity, being absorbed, or dissolving completely. But in the current economy will no doubt result in a bailout costing the taxpayers and the economy untold billions and not solving the underlying problem with a company of that size, scope, or apathy towards the safety and quality of their products.
It's not that America can't be better. It's that America won't be better. Because why should you pay an honest day's wage if you don't have to? And why would you do an honest day's work if you're watching the boss pocket all your blood, sweat and tears, ready to discard you at the first sign of a loss in profit?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday January 26 2020, @07:53AM (1 child)
Phrasing "halt begins" is political insanity embedded in the core language.
Broken language creates broken minds.
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 26 2020, @10:10PM
Perfectly normal and sane for an engineer: halt is a state of a dynamic system, not necessary a final one; one can use "begin" to designate the moment when the system transitioned in the state
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:55PM
So many unfortunate steps, not sure where to point to say they went wrong.
Two competing plane designs (Airbus and BA) which happened to be different in the height of the wing.
An evolution in engine technology and fuel cost which made a high wing apparently necessary.
A business plan to band aid over the necessity to keep a major industry running.
An forceful bypassing of engineering design procedures to ignore reality in making the band aid.
Major loss of life.
A cover up that didn't go well.
A failure to leave no stone unturned in attempting to fix the mess.
A reasonably unfavorable market and regulatory reaction.
Throw in the towel giving the hit to the workers who didn't choose any of the above paths.
You know, stepping back and looking at the situation, it screams leadership.
And leadership flows from the expectations of the investment community.
They forgot that to make money building airplanes, you have to first build great airplanes.
The fallout needs to flow down from the investment community into the folks choosing the path.
It probably won't.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:42PM
Talk about unnecessary regulation. Why did they ground a plane that grounds itself, pilots notwithstanding?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SpockLogic on Sunday January 26 2020, @06:42PM
The problem with Boeing runs much deeper than the 737MAX. This is a crash of the prior version, the 737NG
Yet again a single point of failure and Pilots who were kept in the dark by Boeing and the dead pilots got the blame !!!
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII