
Boeing 737 Max ordered by Ryanair undergoes name change - maratumba
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/15/boeing-737-max-ordered-by-ryanair-undergoes-name-change
======
gourou
> Photos have emerged of a repainted 737 Max in Ryanair colours outside
> Boeing’s manufacturing hub, with the name 737 Max replaced by 737-8200 on
> the nose.

Now I'm worried about boarding any 737

~~~
skybrian
Why? Do you think their safety record is worse than driving?

~~~
benj111
You're comparing apples to oranges.

Compare pilots to drivers or cars to planes.

I would guess that somewhere north of 90% of crashes are human error mainly or
completely.

~~~
skybrian
I didn't actually do the comparison. I asked a question. You can choose your
own methodology.

But if you die, it doesn't matter whether it's human error or not, so it might
be better to compare overall risk from all causes?

~~~
benj111
I understood it to be a rhetorical question, apologies if I misunderstood.

Driving encompasses both mechanical and human risks. Here we are talking about
just the mechanical, so I don't think the comparison is particularly fair.

------
LordFast
Out of all the possible solutions, let's go ahead and choose the one that
further destroys people's trust in our abilities to make sound decisions!

/s

Ridiculous.

~~~
sametmax
Immoral yes. Ridiculous no.

People have a short memory and a strong affect toward symbolism.

Marketing just pulls the desired psychological tricks to reach their
objective.

It works. Just like lying in politics works. Just like making corporate PR
statements work. Just like in your face ads work. Just like showing boobs
work.

It will work as long as people are cruising in their life instead of trying to
build it. It will keep working because it goes with the flow of our internal
mechanisms, and it takes conscious efforts to not be influenced by it. And it
will keep being used because the value of doing so it far superior than the
cost.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
Immoral-as-the-norm is itself ridiculous.

~~~
sametmax
I tend to see bad apples just like tornadoes or forest fires. They are natural
catastrophes, and they will always be there, not matter the society we build.

The important part is how we react to those people. In that sense, I feel we
are more responsible for the problem than them. Indeed, why blame a tornado ?
Better learn to behave in case of one, and make houses the proper way.

So I don't think we should focus on the immorality as much as we should make
sure we create generations of persons than know how to deal with it: remember
bad deeds, detect manipulations, choose what they consume, etc.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
You're absolutely right to focus on making sure we know how to deal with these
things. The difference is that there aren't two sides to a tornado. We should
_also additionally_ focus on the people and systems that make this happen.

~~~
sametmax
Sure, but no matter how much you do this additional focus, there will be
always be a few terrible persons going through the net. The only way to avoid
it would be to cut down on freedom to an extreme.

It's also very expensive. The legal system, prisons, and the whole gov web is
a big, slow and inflexible machine.

Removing the incentive to be an asshole is just better. But it's our job, not
the job of some higher power.

------
hodder
This is disgusting misdirection and frankly feels fraudulent to me.

The definition of fraud is as follows:

Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal
gain.

What Boeing is doing meets that definition of fraud if you ask me.

~~~
Panino
If there is fraud here then I think it would be committed by Ryanair. There
are essentially 2 transactions to consider here:

1\. Boeing-Ryanair: both parties know this plane has been rebadged and have
agreed to it. There is no deception.

2\. Ryanair-customer: one party has rebadged a known faulty product, claiming
it to be something else. There is deception on the part of Ryanair, the entity
financially benefiting from the transaction.

Maybe consider that everything the 737 MAX 8 touches dies. Airlines, flyers,
shareholders.

Boeing made this dumpster fire and now they should sleep in it. I'm with other
posters here who will now avoid any 737. Lots of fish in the sea, lots of
planes in the sky.

~~~
hodder
True enough. Both parties seem to know that they are trying to deceive
passengers though. Both are at fault if you ask me.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
>Airlines fear some passengers will refuse to fly on the Max.

Well this sure solves that problem in an anti-customer way.

Your partner doesn't want want duck for dinner? Order it anyways and tell them
it isn't duck. If you make up a new word for duck, it's not lying and you're a
good partner. /s

~~~
matonias
In Amsterdam there is a steakhouse that has been serving horse steaks as just
‘steaks’ for over 40 years.

People thought they were great and prefered them over beef, untill they found
out it was horse.

Its all in the mind!

(Steak doesn’t kill you though, airplanes do)

Edit: resto is called Piet de Leeuw

~~~
apexalpha
To be fair you can make a steak from horse meat, or any beefy animal for that
matter.

------
mannykannot
On the one hand, I personally feel that trying to avoid the Maxes
specifically, once they are allowed back in service, would be an excess of
caution that overemphasizes the legacy of one issue. On the other hand, could
they have found a better way of sending the message that they think the
problem is passenger perceptions, rather than in systems engineering and
adequate pilot training?

~~~
magduf
It's not an excess of caution, and it isn't one issue. This whole debacle has
shown that safety is not a priority at Boeing at all, with misstep after
misstep; we've only scratched the surface of the cancer running deep within
this company.

Remember, when the first plane crashed, they tried to blame the pilots. Then
the second plane crashed, and they continued to insist it was safe. All the
other nations' air safety agencies had to ground the plane before the FAA
would. Then after that they continued to refuse to admit fault, they wanted to
make a small, lame patch to the MCAS software instead of making it triply
redundant, they didn't want to retrain pilots, I could go on and on. In short,
they didn't really want to fix the issue completely, they just wanted to gloss
over it and get the planes back in the air as quickly and cheaply as they
could, which proves my original point: safety is not a priority with Boeing
today. And they certainly haven't fixed their internal management or
engineering to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again.

So why would you trust this company at all at this point?

~~~
matz1
I personally would not worry if my next flight is Boeing 737 max, the
probability it will crash still very low, even if it do crash, I will be dead
anyway it won't matter.

Doesn't mean I trust Boeing, I trust market force, I trust that other people
will keep the uproar to keep airline in check.

~~~
cabaalis
> I trust that other people will keep the uproar to keep airline in check.

I agree with you, and expect that engineers/regulators to do their jobs. But I
think this is a form of the bystander effect. [1] I'm not sure what we can do
proactively except be cognizant of what we choose to ride in.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect)

~~~
magduf
The engineers and regulators have already proven they can't be trusted to do
their jobs. Thankfully, the EASA has stepped up to do some proper regulation
now that they've seen that they can't trust the FAA any more, and are keeping
the plane grounded.

------
mrtksn
I wonder what happens if 737 max becomes the first Ryanair plane to crash(even
with no fault on Boeing's part)?

Would that bring down the trust for low-cost airlines too?

Maybe cheap tickets can get associated with low security?

"Yeah, don't buy that ticket they are probably using the crashy plane"

------
smarx007
50/50

The name is not new but still the motive is unclear...

[https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/new-name-for-
ryan...](https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/new-name-for-
ryanair-737-max-is-not-actually-new-459666/)

~~~
salawat
Did you mean "the motive is clear", but got autocowrekted?

------
CodeSheikh
Boeing is not going to disappoint you when it comes to shady stuff. I think
now I am going to avoid any 737 models from now on-wards.

~~~
magduf
Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to avoid the 737 for a lot of routes because
it's so ubiquitous. Also, most of them were engineered and built before the
current management, and have proven themselves with a good safety record so
far, so they really should be OK. It's the new MAX model you really want to
avoid, and it's probably a good idea to avoid the 787 as well.

~~~
52-6F-62
Why the 787? It's been my favourite ride so far—comfort-wise.

~~~
magduf
1\. It was created during the current management era. 2\. It was built in
South Carolina at a new plant that had huge production issues, such as leaving
metal shavings inside the airplanes where they would get into wiring
harnesses.

~~~
ulfw
Let's not forget the exploding batteries which were fixed by putting a metal
container around them and a hole in the hull, so when they inevitably explode
again, they'll at least vent outside.

It'd be okay with that shit on a bus. Not on a plane in the middle over the
Pacific. How the 787 got it's ETOPS rating is beyond me.

(actually it isn't. We have all witnessed how corrupt the FAA is by
outsourcing it's own job to Boeing itself - the equivalent of a professor
outsourcing paper grading to students themselves).

~~~
jtnjns
And this software bug that requires the plane to be turned off and on again
every 248 days to prevent an integer overflow and loss of power.

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/01/us-
aviation...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/01/us-aviation-
authority-boeing-787-dreamliner-bug-could-cause-loss-of-control)

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-
inspection.federalregister.g...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-
inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-10066.pdf)

------
reneherse
Just yesterday I wondered when Boeing would do this and what the name would
be.

The new name is about as humdrum and forgettable as you can get, which is
exactly what Boeing hopes will become of the memory of all that has transpired
with the MAX.

Fortunately the plane has some distinctive and memorable exterior features: A
sawtoothed trailing edge on the engine nacelles and bidirectional winglets.

~~~
bronson
The split scimitar winglets on 700s and 800s can be hard to tell apart from
the MAX8's AT winglets (the AT is more raked). You're right about the giant
sawtoothed LEAP engines being distinctive. Also MAX8s have a sharp rear
tailcone that protrudes past the base of the tail.

------
_bxg1
So now we have to keep track of a whole constellation of aliases. Great.

~~~
diggan
I've found an easier way, chose an airline that uses Airbus instead of Boing.
I only have to keep track of two identifiers and filtering becomes very easy.

~~~
snek
which airbus planes do you avoid?

~~~
oarsinsync
I suspect the filtering is Airbus vs Boeing

------
alkonaut
Was “NG” originally printed on the previous gen aircraft, but later shifted to
just 737-800/737-8? I always thought the MAX name was kind of like ”New” - ie
something that would disappear.

~~~
thomasedwards
The ‘classic’ ones were -300/-400/-500, and the NG were -600/-700/-800/-900.
The MAX 8 is a replacement for the -800, and it has been called a 737-8 for a
while – their FAA type certificates are 737-7, -8, and -9.

------
S_A_P
question- if you are a pilot, and you fly 737s do you think that you are now
unaware of the differences? Do you think that given that awareness you may be
apt to want to learn about those differences, even if not for curiosities
sake, but so that you don't wind up fighting a plane and losing? Now dont
mistake this as sympathy or support for the management of Boeing. I think they
need to pay fines/spend time in jail/have their ability to lead a corporation
revoked. This was gross mismanagement, and they deserve civil and criminal
charges for it.

However, it sounds to me like _if_ you know about how the new 737 behaves, and
you are aware of/trained on the procedure to fix an incident similar to what
happened in the 2 crashes then you are likely to recover without any issue. On
the flipside, I used to love to fly SWA because they had only 737s and all
their planes were more or less the same and maintenance would be standard
across all planes and therefore something that is repeatable and more likely
to be mastered by the technicians. Parts would be easily available for their
fleet. The pilots know the flight envelope. Sounds to me like one of
southwest's biggest selling points is about to go out the window for me, even
if this is a laymans perception that is completely wrong. It still seems like
they have fragmented their fleet.

~~~
ohazi
This.

I'm surprised by the number of HN readers going bananas about never flying in
this plane again. Every pilot on the planet knows about this issue now, and
commercial pilots are already used to broad differences in airplane handling
characteristics and how to avoid a stall in different configurations, as long
as they're not forced to fight against 120 lbs of pitch trim.

If the _only_ thing Boeing does is add an "MCAS off" button, pilots will be
able to get the thing back on the ground in an emergency, even without new
type rating, and even if pitch is a little bit squirley for ten minutes.

This is the same mistake we accuse the public of making when they freak out
over terrorism and demand more TSA theater. We have steel cockpit doors and a
new cultural understanding of what a hijacker can do. This is what prevents a
9/11 style hijacking from happening again, not the TSA.

------
neilv
Will this prompt some fliers to avoid 737-anything or Boeing-anything?

~~~
appleiigs
Definitely not. Time and time again, it’s been proven people only care about
the cheapest ticket price. You can nickel and dime them, treat them like
cattle, and physically beat your customers and they will continue to use your
airline and airplanes.

~~~
whatshisface
I wonder what the true market equilibrium between ticket price and not dying
would be if the FAA let people find their own balance. If a life is valued at
$2,000,000 then people would accept a one in a million chance of dying for $2
off their ticket.

~~~
dmurray
People would make irrational choices, certainly in deciding whether to drive
or fly. I don't think the market would come up with an equilibrium price for a
micromort: at best you could find an equilibrium price for taking some risk of
dying in a particular way such as a high-profile airliner crash.

Also, it's hard for even an expert to estimate the current chance of a 737 MAX
flight crashing: historically it's around 1 in 5,000, but if they were cleared
to fly tomorrow it's hard to say if the rate would be 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 1
million.

------
chvid
Maybe Boeing and Ryanair should change their names as well ...

~~~
kozak
Ryanair never flew 737 MAX commercially yet.

------
zarmin
Do passengers have a right to refuse to fly on the 737 "max"?

~~~
salawat
...Yes?

Though I think what you may be actually intending to ask is is the airline
bound to provide with a flight to your ticketed destination on another plane
if they have to sub-in a MAX because of reasons.

That is a question with a far less straightforward answer; the last time I
read terms they reserved the right to swap in hardware as circumstances
warrant. You'll want to take it up with the carrier. Which I recommend
everyone does; as they only pay attention when sizable customer groups start
making a fuss.

------
snek
that feel when isitmax8.com is already taken

------
julienfr112
What about naming it A-351 ?

------
_pmf_
What a very Ryanair thing to do.

~~~
salex89
Can't blame Ryanair by themselves too much. Their whole company and business
depends on the 737, and their foreseeable future on the Max. Not a pleasant
situation to be in. Even Ryanair is not that big to handle the dumpster fire
Boeing started.

I'm more irritated with IAG who is ordering a bunch of Maxes while they are
still grounded and who knows when will fly again, and what the hell is wrong
with them. Even giving up a part of their Airbus fleet maintenance to Boeing.
Truth be told, the Max will probably fly again and it will be a very
scrutinized aircraft so this is a wise business decision. Just don't mind me
considering it joining the dark side.

------
gabrielblack
A question: they still have to ground the "whatever re-branded 737 max" until
the conclusion of the investigation, right ? This can't be a loophole to avoid
the interdiction to fly, isn't it ?

~~~
edoceo
Yes, MAX is a tradename, -8200 is like the model-number and FAA uses that.
Still grounded.

------
matwood
Regardless of the name change they are still grounded. Given all the scrutiny,
when they finally do fly again they will likely be one of safest planes in the
sky.

~~~
vikramkr
On what basis? They're trying to fix a fundamental aerodynamic design failure
with a software patch. The entire physical design if the airplane is flawed,
and they arent rebuilding the entire fleet, just pushing another software
patch.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
A downside of there being so many threads on this fiasco is that many of the
same points get made each time.

I'll post the usual counterpoint: this isn't a new. The F-16 for instance is
also famously unstable, and cannot be flown without computer assistance.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon#Negative_stability_and_fly-
by-wire)

~~~
brokenmachine
General Dynamics never claimed the F-16 was just a slightly modified Cessna in
order to avoid having to retrain pilots and have it safety tested, however.

------
benj111
Well considering Ryanair's predilection for renaming random airports after a
large city it's not really anywhere near, this seems like a logical step.

------
piadodjanho
This is not the first time an airline rebrands an airplane due fearmongering
after an accident.

The Fokker-100 was rebranded as MK-28 in Brazil after an accident (trust
reverse deployed after take-off). The news reported every incident with the
plane afterward. I remember my parents avoiding flights with Fokker-100. The
MK-28, on the other hand, had a very good safety record.

~~~
Voloskaya
Is it appropriate to call this fearmongering when the issues are real (for the
737)?

~~~
piadodjanho
Yes. I think it is appropriate to call this fearmongering.

The planes with the faulty software are grounded and won't be flying until
they new software is proven to be safe. The re-certification process will
likely be stricter than usually is. Thus, any fear about flying in those
planes are unjustified.

~~~
Voloskaya
> Thus, any fear about flying in those planes are unjustified

No they aren't. Not until the new software is indeed proven to be safe, and a
review of the Max program completed to ensure corners weren't cut elsewhere as
well.

It will be fearmongering if all the above is done, and media are still trying
to push fear. This is not the case today, so it's not fearmongering.

~~~
piadodjanho
I see your point. I think I might have failed to express my point of view
clearly.

I was talking about reason Boeing chose to rebrand the 787-MAX.

------
Iolaum
Does that help them to get around regulatory scrutiny (ie get the planes on
the air faster)? Or is it just to fool consumers?

------
JustSomeNobody
This should somehow be illegal. Any time where a product is under scrutiny, it
should be illegal to change the name the public has been given previously.

This is just disgusting, corporate greed. People don't trust Boeing and this
isn't going to help.

------
optimusrex
Reminder at how simple it can be for an organization to rebrand itself, even
with social media I feel many individuals will still be unaware of this change
that will be occurring.

------
lostmymind66
I knew this was the next step for these companies. They don't want to lose
millions and the easiest thing to do is change the name. At some point, the
public will forget.

------
__m
Well if I were concerned about safety I wouldn’t fly Ryanair in the first
place, I don’t think the repaint was necessary

~~~
Someone1234
You wouldn't fly on an airline that has had zero fatalities in its 34 year
operating history? Ryanair definitely has had issues (particularly in the
early 2000s with pilot fatigue) but there's a lack of basis to suggest they're
unsafe.

I won't fly on Ryanair myself, but it has nothing to do with their safety
record (which is fair to good), it has to do with the way they treat customers
and employees.

------
meche123
Just curious: are there any calls for the resignation of the entire management
board?

------
Merrill
Will they change the scalloped trailing edge of the engine nacelle?

