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Boeing Customers Cancel Staggering 150 Max Plane Orders in March

posted by martyb on Tuesday April 14 2020, @11:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the management-induced-flight-into-terrain dept.

DannyB writes:

Boeing customers cancel staggering 150 Max plane orders, deepening crisis as coronavirus roils air travel:

Boeing customers canceled a staggering number of 737 Max orders last month, deepening the crisis the company faces amid the coronavirus pandemic and the continued grounding of its bestselling plane after two fatal crashes.

The Chicago-based manufacturer on Tuesday posted 150 cancellations of its beleaguered 737 Max jets in March, the most in decades, the company said. Brazilian airline Gol canceled 34 of the narrow-body planes and leasing firm Avolon scrapped orders for 75 of them, a move it announced earlier this month. Net cancellations in the month totaled 119 thanks to 31 orders for wide-body passenger planes and military aircraft.

That brought net orders Boeing removed from its order list in [the]first three months of the year to 307 planes, a sharp turnaround for a company that just over a year ago was aiming to increase output of its planes to meet strong demand.

[...] Boeing's airline customers are now facing the steepest drop in demand ever recorded because of Covid-19 and harsh measures like stay-at-home orders to slow its spread. The pandemic comes on top of the more than year-long grounding of the 737 Max after 346 people were killed in two crashes.

Alternate source: Yahoo finance

<no-sarcasm>
I wonder. If the 737 MAX had not been grounded, would those orders have been cancelled, despite the Covid-19 downturn in airline flights.
</no-sarcasm>

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday April 15 2020, @12:12AM (4 children)

    by krishnoid (1156) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @12:12AM (#982848)

    Don't they make a lot of planes for the US military as well? Gotta figure that they won't let *them* go under.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Kell on Wednesday April 15 2020, @03:26AM (3 children)

    by Kell (292) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @03:26AM (#982904)

    People familiar with Boeing will tell you that the company is not a single monolithic enterprise: its various arms and tentacles are fairly independent. It's not impossible that the US federal government (or even the company itself) could simply sever the diseased limb of the commercial air transport division and leave it to its fate. Lockheed did something similar back in the day.

    --
    Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 15 2020, @01:50PM (2 children)

      by mhajicek (51) on Wednesday April 15 2020, @01:50PM (#983046)

      Every limb of Boeing has gangrene. Nothing healthy to save.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 15 2020, @02:17PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2020, @02:17PM (#983058) Journal

        What about Starliner?

        SLS?

        Other problems . . .

        New document reveals significant fall from grace for Boeing’s space program [arstechnica.com]

        "I have decided to eliminate Boeing from further award consideration."

        [ . . . ] Then there are the issues with the company's KC-46 Pegasus tanker program, which is $3 billion over budget, three years behind schedule, and beset by technical issues. Most recently, in March, the Air Force revealed that it had upgraded chronic leaks in the aircraft's fuel system to a Category I deficiency. This is a problem for an aircraft that is supposed to perform aerial refueling.

        [ . . . . ] In the analysis, which compared Boeing to SpaceX and the third competitor in the crew program, Sierra Nevada, Boeing received the highest marks. "Boeing's proposal had the highest overall Mission Suitability score and the highest adjectival ratings of Excellent for each of the two most heavily weighted subfactors, Technical and Management," Gerstenmaier wrote. "I agree with this assessment." In the final crew development awards, Boeing received $4.2 billion from NASA, and SpaceX $2.6 billion—reflecting Boeing's much higher costs at the time.

        Six years later, the perception of Boeing's bid for the lunar cargo contract is much changed. Of the four contenders, it had the lowest overall technical and mission suitability scores. In addition, Boeing's proposal was characterized as "inaccurate" and possessing no "significant strengths." Boeing also was cited with a "significant weakness" in its proposal for pushing back on providing its software source code.

        --
        To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 16 2020, @03:01AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 16 2020, @03:01AM (#983416) Journal
        Indeed. Boeing is a great candidate for the nuclear option - ban them from all federal-level government work, and if there are any financial debt or obligations owed to the federal government, take Boeing to bankruptcy court for it. It's cold, but there are few more worthy targets out there.