
Saudi airline cancels $6B Boeing order in favor of Airbus - thomas
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/saudi-airline-cancels-6b-boeing-order-favor-airbus-who-s-n1027441
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nradov
Foreign aircraft purchases are highly politicized and this decision probably
has nothing to do with product quality, safety, or price. More likely it's a
signal from the Saudi royal family to the US Congress that they ought to stop
being so critical over minor issues like the murder of a US resident or
bombing civilian targets in Yemen.

~~~
jedmeyers
> like the murder of a US resident

When was the last time the murder of a US resident on foreign soil
investigated and/or prosecuted by the US?

~~~
Redoubts
When was the last time one was murdered in an embassy?

~~~
tehlike
i think the point he's making is "resident" not "citizen".

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mc32
Boeing deserves to get pushback like this. They really let everyone down, but
most problematic was not having public safety foremost in their design of this
airframe. That is inexcusable.

It’s too bad there isn’t a better whistleblowing mechanism for these kinds of
questionable design decisions for critical infrastructure.

I can only hope the certification process will become more rigorous and
require the approval of multiple aviation regulators before it’s declared
airworthy.

~~~
jandrese
The way MCAS handled its two sensor inputs is basically malpractice. It's mind
boggling to me that someone developing that system thought it was an
acceptable mode of operation.

~~~
linuxftw
Hopefully someone is successful in suing for discovery. It might not have been
'mind boggling' it might have been deliberate action by management to cut
costs, reduce MTBF (because 2 sensors fails more often), or the fact that
'Boeing' didn't design the system so much as an amalgamation of cut-rate 3rd
party contractors with a 'yes-person' 'project manager' at the helm vs an
actual engineer.

~~~
trhway
>deliberate action by management to ... MTBF (because 2 sensors fails more
often)

if that happens to be real case, it may become the textbook case of perverted
metrics/cobra effect.

~~~
matt-attack
It’s actually an interesting concept. As a naive buyer I might think that
lower MTBF is better and represents and improvement in product specs. However
in this case it clearly comes at a cost of reduced reliability, since there is
no backup. However “reliability” _seems_ the same as “MTBF” to my naive brain,
so I’m struggling to resolve this apparent paradox.

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stirfrykitty
Airbus make a superior product anyway. They've gotten FbW down to a science
and were the first to use it, as well as glass cockpits. The pilots generally
like Airbus planes better. They have better safety controls, more room for the
pilots, and more comfortable for pilots and passengers. Boeing seems almost
last century in comparison.

~~~
elif
Hm my experience has been different. I'm always delighted to see that 37 nose
at my gate.

I can't speak for pilots but as a passenger, I've been in an a319 that had
enough pressure issues to give me sharp pain in my ears that lingered for a
day, and annecdotally they feel more prone to turbulence with their big wings.

I'm too tall for either of their seats, so perhaps that's why I don't notice
the comfort you speak of.

~~~
mikeash
Note that seats are installed by the airline and can vary substantially even
within the same model of plane.

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pdx_flyer
It's actually more of a pragmatic decision than it is one of safety for
Flyadeal.

They were slated to take the 737MAX deliveries starting in 2021 and with
deliveries currently halted, there is no way that will happen (especially if
the airplane isn't cleared soon). Flyadeal is trying to grow and they need
planes to do it. Airbus can deliver on the 2021 date without issue and
Flyadeal was likely given a slight discount to pick up some empty production
slots.

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elcomet
It's important to keep a good competition between Airbus and Boeing. I hope
Boeing can get up and fix their crap. (And I'm European)

~~~
magduf
I'd rather see Boeing go out of business at this point; they've proven they
can't be trusted. What we need is more competition from other manufacturers,
such as Mitsubishi in Japan. If Boeing goes under, some other, more
trustworthy company could buy up their assets and start building better-
engineered planes.

~~~
adventured
I disagree. Besides, it's not very realistic as an outcome. I think the HN
revenge fantasy thing going on about Boeing right now has taken a turn for the
comical. Post after post on the front page with comments about the desire for
Boeing to die. It's a bit much at this point.

HN's record on such predictions is notorious anyway.

Facebook didn't fail, despite all the HN predictions and bad outcome fantasy
posts. Quite the opposite. Its user base keeps expanding, its sales keep
climbing, its power keeps growing. Users did not abandon it en masse. None of
what was commonly predicted on HN occurred.

Intel - another common target of bad outcome fantasies - isn't failing, their
profits are at all-time highs. That's despite the constant HN posts for years
about that being inevitable. AMD is due to crush them any minute now, Intel is
toast.

Boeing is a $200 billion valuation company - which earned $10b in profit last
year - that is strategically critical to the world's largest economy and sole
superpower (the one that also happens to have a $750 billion military that
depends on Boeing). It's a company with one of the grandest, longest and most
positive histories in all of aviation. The notion that two crashes should end
that is absurd.

Boeing isn't going anywhere, not under any circumstances most likely. As
things actually are, over many decades it has earned its place. If any company
deserves an opportunity to re-earn trust, Boeing would qualify.

~~~
mullingitover
> that is strategically critical to the world's largest economy and sole
> superpower (the one that also happens to have a $750 billion military that
> depends on Boeing)

This part is really all that matters. Boeing isn't a company as much as it's
an organ of the state. Regardless of how inferior their engineering is, they
won't be allowed to fail.

~~~
magduf
The US government can prop up the military side of Boeing, but they can't
force foreign airlines to keep buying their planes, especially when the flying
public doesn't want to risk their lives on them.

~~~
JAlexoid
Flying public will forget fast enough. Besides 777 is the safest airliner in
history.

~~~
magduf
The 777 is a rather old plane at this point, and was made before the current
management era at Boeing. The 787 is the one to worry about; there's been lots
of reports of production issues with it.

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mensetmanusman
Events like this really put into focus the value of engineering. Imagine that
management had hired an elite team of 50 safety focused individuals and paid
them a billion dollars. They would still be profitable!

Totally reminds me of exploding Samsung phones in terms of the small
incremental investment that would have saved billions.

~~~
P_I_Staker
Agreed, but that may not hold true at scale. It's like saying a $50 taxi ride
is cheaper than a DUI. That only holds true for around 20-200 rides, and I've
seen estimates that most people do more than that before they get caught (of
course there's other ethical and practical reasons not to).

If I was to guess, there's a ton of this kind of stuff going on, and most of
the time nothing happens. Not all boneheaded or sketchy engineering decisions
cause catastrophe (or get caught). Also, my understanding is that this was a
deliberate choice by Boeing, so more "safety engineers" wouldn't necessarily
help. This is frequently the case with engineering disasters. The problems are
with politics, management, even communication.

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bradhe
Boeing's MAX order backlog is 8 years long still.

~~~
jankassens
I don't understand this backlog for airplanes (Boeing and Airbus): Is this
kind of backlog normal in industrial scale? Is it not viable to scale up
production with the massive tail of suppliers that would all need to scale up?

~~~
Havoc
The issue lies in viewing it as a backlog. It's not since it implies someone's
behind schedule.

It's more like long range planning with commitments as defined by airlines 10
year plans. They __don't__ want the planes now like a backlog would imply,
they want them in 2021.

Also, schedules tend to align with the cycle of the industry. New planes take
time to develop etc. So everything happens on a year(s) schedule, incl
delivery schedules.

>Is it not viable to scale up production

And then what are you gonna do with all that infrastructure sitting idle for 8
years in between your aircraft generations? Sometimes slow is the profitable
approach

~~~
jimbob45
Then in that case, does that mean that Boeing won't lose any money provided
that they keep their backlog full for the duration of the aircraft's life
cycle? (maybe 20 years). Seems like they have many years to fill the hole made
by Saudi Arabia at no real loss.

~~~
Havoc
>Boeing won't lose any money provided that they keep their backlog full for
the duration of the aircraft's life cycle?

The 737 (all variants) is/was/will be massively popular so I'd imagine as a
project it's probably still profitable.

The danger here is reputation. Boeing has in the space of a year ruined a
multi-decade reputation. I mentioned this before, but all these articles
scream underlying institutional culture problems. Remember the one a month or
so ago about a Boeing engineer saying he's uncomfortable letting family fly on
a Boeing plane? Forget a lost order, that's existential crisis territory for
an organization.

------
rootusrootus
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375264](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375264)

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jjwhitaker
From how these contracts were explained to me, this is a win for Boeing
(probably).

Most of these contracts have an initial deposit then payment on delivery
however if the order is cancelled, Boeing keeps any deposit and possibly some
or all of the full payment (as a cancellation fee like with most cell phone
contracts).

Now Bowing already has the initial cost of manufacturing partially or fully
covered AND gets to sell the plane or simply not manufacture it for pure
profit.

~~~
JAlexoid
These contracts aren't exactly cookie cutter privacy policy agreements.

Boeing isn't going to profit off these cancellations in any case.

There's a lot of money in support as well.

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gumby
In the early days of the 340 (one of the first commercial FBW aircraft) I held
back for a couple of years but it's turned out to be great.

Now I'm suspicious of all 737/787 flights. Thank goodness it's easy these days
to figure out what kind of aircraft you're booking.

I wonder when sites like Kayak will add a toggle so you can include/exclude
certain models of aircraft from your itinerary.

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sebazzz
I can imagine airliners have their entire maintenance "street" completely
tailored to maintain their Boeing aircraft, so unless you already happen to
have Airbus, a switch is not likely it seems. Can anyone shed some light on
that?

~~~
peteretep
Very few serious airlines are running exclusively Boeing or Airbus

~~~
abruzzi
really? I always thought that a lot of the low cost domestic airlines in the
US managed costs by maintaining a fleet of a single type of plane. Southwest
Airlines for example is entirely Boeing 737 (according to wikipedia, 513
737-700, 207 737-800, and 34 737 MAX 8--presumable grounded.)

~~~
peteretep
Ryanair is another. But “very few” doesn’t mean “no”. I wonder if (but doubt)
there are any airlines who also fly big planes (and have more than a handful
of planes) that are single manufacturer only.

~~~
JAlexoid
Ryanair is a CC of Southwest.

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dmix
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375264](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375264)

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tus88
Who here would fly on a Max 8? If not, why should Saudi buy them?

~~~
Grue3
It would be irrational not to. You're far more likely to die in a car
accident.

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davidw
"Saudi airline gives Boeing the chop"

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pcunite
_this is the first instance of an airline publicly switching an aircraft order
away from Boeing ... Airbus doesn’t have the production capacity to take much
market share away from Boeing ... If this plane doesn’t start flying again
before Christmas ..._

It's not likely Boeing is going out of business. Is the purpose of articles
like this to effect a wall street trader? Not into that personally, just
wondering. Why is NBC putting pressure on Boeing? For the clicks?

~~~
pgeorgi
> Why is NBC putting pressure on Boeing? For the clicks?

It's one of the cases where screwing up your product has consequences, even
for a huge nation-state-backed duopolist. That happens so rarely it's
newsworthy.

