It is a question, but the answer is probably pretty mundane.
An airplane is a tremendously complex machine, and building them is a well honed process with lots of checks and balances built in which protect the investment the company is making in building such a complex device.
So no doubt there are many many root cause analysis meetings which are going on to root out the failures in the process that let the plane get to this point.
But historically, the company has made modifications to the 737 airframe to provide new models and those changes have gone well. Certainly in the sense that they produced a viable airplane that was safe to fly.
I would speculate that due to the history of the 737 airframe, and the track record of creating new variants that are safe, and the challenge of stopping the manufacturing line for such a plane which literally has thousands of suppliers making parts on a schedule that has years of deliveries in it, it took this long to get through the various options that would not require stopping the production of the plane. Stopping production is literally the second worse scenario[1] for Boeing.
I fully expect this was put out there to put this ball (tens of thousands of jobs lost) in the FAA's court. I also fully expect Boeing to halt production if the FAA processes drag out longer, its not economical to continue making aircraft and not delivering them, in that if they don't deliver them, they don't get paid.
There's a point where its no longer due diligence, but decision paralysis. I don't know if were anywhere near that point with the 737 MAX, but at some point we will be, and we shouldn't ever get there.
The problem is that this will hurt tons of small businesses and suppliers more than it will hurt Boeing. It will hurt the machinists who assemble the aircraft, the network of suppliers in the Seattle area. But for the suits in Chicago it will be a metrics miss and maybe less of a bonus.
As unfortunate as that is, due to overconsolidation, this is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
If Boeing were just one in a field of aircraft manufacturers, this wouldn't be half as catastrophic, since that whole supply chain would have everyone else to supply.
But that isn't the case anymore, and it is about time overconsolidation bit something in the arse.
They were gambling on a quick fix that would be acceptable to regulators, and which could be easily retrofit to existing aircraft, including the ones still rolling off the production line. Pausing production has cost -- and if the planes were recertified by now, the cost of storing finished planes in parking lots is probably quite a bit less.
Their initial reaction was "nothing to see here, keep moving". When it was clear that wouldn't fly, it was "don't worry, we'll have a fix ready before you know it". It should have been clear when the entire world stopped trusting their certification that this was going to be a long drawn out process. The scariest part of this event is their apparent disconnect from reality. Their gamble was a losing one from the beginning.
I think, given the corruption which has come out from the investigation, that gambling on a quick fix was probably a sane choice. That only makes it scarier, though.
I think they were gambling on the delay being a reasonable amount of time, say 6 months. Now the FAA has had the final updated software for something like a month and a half and just started certification testing.
This smacks of some incompetence on behalf of the FAA, since if they had a clear idea of what the requirements were for re-certification, they would also have a clear idea of how long it should take, and the last 6 months have been delays and "we will be done when were done".
I'm also not too keen on the machisimo of the FAA Administrator insisting on testing the aircraft himself.
Everyone here on HN wants this to be drawn out to punish Boeing, but its really punishing everyone, including the wallets of people buying airline tickets. Ticket prices have been high with many airlines because of their grounded fleet.
> Now the FAA has had the final updated software for something like a month and a half and just started certification testing. This smacks of some incompetence on behalf of the FAA
Up to the second accident FAA left much of the certification process up to Boeing(!) alone. No wonder that they discovered now that they need more time:
They also demonstrated to the whole world that they aren't serious about safety after the rest of the world grounded the planes but they still just repeated whatever Boeing told them.
The current weakness of FAA is of Boeing's making:
"Since 2001 [Boeing] has lobbied vigorously to perform more of its own safety tests. In 2005 the FAA began to allow Boeing to do more self-certification. “It’s like putting children in charge of the sweet shop,” says a former Boeing adviser. An investigation by the transportation department in 2012 found that the FAA had not done enough to “hold Boeing accountable”. It quoted FAA employees who had reported retaliation for speaking up about problems with Boeing’s previous designs."
This is more of a business calculation (e.g. it's cheaper to keep the supply chain running & park the planes than it is to shut the supply chain down & then start it back up).
They have outstanding orders for around 5000 737 MAXes. Assuming they get them reapproved some time soon, keeping the production going to not fall too far behind their delivery schedule will likely have saved them a fortune in late-fees.
Especially if they rename it and sell it under a new brand. I’d go for a “737 Neo”, only nerds can make the difference (even between a Boeing and an Airbus).
> I still don't really think about it when booking the flight. Schedule and price are more important.
To be honest I do: I often fly MIL-PMO and when possible I book Alitalia and easyJet flights, or Air Italy since they've been leasing two A319s from Bulgaria Air to replace their MAX 8s, rather than Ryanair specifically because their fleet is composed of Airbus aircrafts instead of Boeing (and also because Ryanair won't stop selling you stuff during the whole flight, worsening the noise situation)
I'm in MXP right now to catch a Ryanair flight and I just hope my ANC headphones won't abandon me mid-flight.
Cutting down production, especially for a major product like MAX, will hurt the supply chain and anger the labor. But for MAX I think this is the best decision.
What I wonder is how easy could it be to restart the production? Will they pay workers for doing nothing until the green light shows? Will the suppliers just sit tight without having orders and income waiting for the go sign? Will be there enough orders still?
I assume it is not just one or two months until it can fly again otherwise they wouldn't stop production. But if it is long time then life and people will go on. They will find other engagements and other things to do, they have to. Could and will they be able to throw away that other engagement they started to resume this operation? I bet not easily, not all. Airlines will need something to fly, they might look for other alternatives. Lots and lots of difficulties and loss, lots and lots of money and time to restart this. I believe.
I would assume that the reason they're shutting down is that they've run out of (feasible) places to park them.
As other commenters have mentioned, the order backlog is still long, so as long as you can easily store the planes, it makes sense to keep building them.
From what I have read they would have no problem storing an almost unlimited number of them in one of the desert aircraft storage areas.
It's really that while production operates without deliveries, it's a machine that turns cash into airplanes. Sooner or later, even Boeing is going to run a little low on cash.
I toured the Renton and Everett plants about a decade ago. They showed us the rail lines inside the factory next to the CNC mills. When Boeing lifts an individual stick of aluminum off the rail car they scan it and pay the supplier, before that the aluminum is still on the supplier’s books.
They have taken just-in-time delivery to an extreme to make that money->airplane pump as efficient as possible.
There are billions of dollars of raw materials in various states of becoming airplanes across the Boeing sites. It’s impressive they were able to run as long as they did without a delivery.
