It’s official: IAM rejects Boeing contact by wide margin: 67%

The IAM 751 local thumped Boeing and the IAM International with a stunning rejection of the 777X contract by a margin of 67% to 33%.

IAM International aerospace coordinate Mark Johnson made the announcement. Tom Wroblewski, 751 president, had been sidelined by the International in negotiations and throughout the balloting process after the 751 council reportedly voted 18-10 not to put the contract to the membership for a vote. The International overruled the local. Wroblewski was absent from the announcement and the press conference was cancelled.

Boeing is expected to issue a statement shortly affirming previous threats to put the 777X site location out to bid.

We expect Boeing to come under great pressure from Washington politicians to reconvene negotiations with the IAM to come up with a new agreement. The question is, if Boeing agrees, which IAM will be back at the bargaining table: International or Local 751?

Update: Boeing’s statement:

Boeing Commercial Airplanes has issued a statement from President and CEO Ray Conner after a long-term contract extension was voted down by the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers District 751.

 

“We are very disappointed in the outcome of the union vote. Our goal was two-fold: to enable the 777X and its new composite wing to be produced in Puget Sound and to create a competitive structure to ensure that we continue market-leading pay, health care and retirement benefits while preserving jobs and our industrial base here in the region. But without the terms of this contract extension, we’re left with no choice but to open the process competitively and pursue all options for the 777X.

 

 

I’d like to thank Governor Jay Inslee and the Washington state legislature for all their efforts in this process. We had hoped for a different outcome.”

 

 

79 Comments on “It’s official: IAM rejects Boeing contact by wide margin: 67%

  1. Once again the pitfalls of the “democratic process” rears its ugly head. The union members basically voted NO to the “holding a gun against the head” threat of moving the FAL to somewhere else. What a stupid way to put it. It’s just good business sense. Speaking from the CEO’s perspective, I see the following:
    1) A raucous and rabble rousing union that strikes every contract, even when the contract has record benefits
    2) Spiraling health care costs that members apparently disregard (I see many, many discarded cigarette butts in the parking lots of Boeing despite it being a “tobacco free campus”)
    3) An average salary well above what machinists typically make throughout the nation
    4) A legislature unable to do the hard choices to compete for labor competitiveness to hungry, right-to-work states, and further forces union membership down the throats of the workers
    5) Hungry, well-trained, and eager to learn workers that could probably eventually learn what said well-compensated workers do
    6) Thousands of workers in the defense biz who are potentially going to lose their jobs due to sequestration and the “peace race” and take their experience with them

    I’m actually surprised Conner went to the trouble of offering anything at all to the union. He’s a former machinist. He should have seen this coming. If I were him, I’d just open it up to competition from the start, and favor the defense side of the house that in theory the company keeps around due to their experience and adaptability. That’s the theory: convert defense workers into commercial when commercial is up, and vice versa.

    Anyway, props to Boeing for at least putting forth the effort, and props to the legislature for doing what had to be done (though they could have done a LOT more, like make WA right-to-work), and props to International for … well, trying to keep their union membership dues.

    Don’t ask a machinist who can’t see the forest from the trees on what is best for the business climate in WA.

    • Yeah. I hope all the machinists who voted “No” are happy about sticking it to the man, because they’ve ruined us all. Nice job folks.

      • Wasn’t the offer designed to be voted down ?

        Next step from Boeing:
        The IAM forced us to leave the region.
        Then the 777X project will run into industrialisation problems
        ( or even earlier when this strange 777X sales campaign fizzles during the 2013 Dubai airshow )
        and again the IAM will be held liable 😉

        My expectation is that there is a still below the general downturn for Boeing ahead and they urgently need an external explanation.
        Compare to the last strike that was used to explain 787 delays in a monocausal way.

      • Fix4Typo:
        My expectation is that there is a still below the general _horizon_ downturn for Boeing ahead and they urgently need an external explanation.

      • Uwe- interesting comments. Don’t understand them? Are you saying that the 777X sales are not long term, or are you saying that they will be lost because the union voted no on the contract? Workers are needed to assemble and we know that the union hope here is that they can get more if they vote the first offer down. Happened in the past so why not now. Something has changed and maybe the union will get that before it is too late. Maybe not but I’m not sure the 777X dies because of this silly game unions and management plays.

    • I haven’t been following this story closely, but it seems on this occasion the Union has had a low key influence on the outcome. The vote wasn’t close and it was well attended.

      Boeing either didn’t bother to make the case to its employees or it was mistrusted when it did. Either way that’s a management problem, not a union one. We assume it genuinely wanted to build the 777X in Everett. This goes to show that its poor employee relations has a cost.

    • If you like dictators so much go to Syria for 6 months. . If you make it back you will change your mind about ugly democracy.

  2. Have fun (soon-to-be) unemployed Boeing employees. The Boeing offer wasn’t actually too bad. Most companies are now making their employees contribute more towards health and pension payments, Boeing’s plan wasn’t too different.

    I hope this was basically a “negotiation tactic” to get get more from Boeing.

    • “Have fun (soon-to-be) unemployed Boeing employees.”

      Hmm, that’s certainly a rather patronising way of putting things.

      In contrast, Ben Sandilands has this somewhat different big picture analysis:

      It says much for the deterioration in Boeing’s labour relations in its home state that its machinists have voted 67% against losing their pensions in order to retain work on the upgraded 777-X series of ‘super twin’ jets in Washington.

      The dispute is one that brings the harsh ideological and income divides of America today into raw focus for those living in countries where a secure pension is considered an inviolate reward for years of loyalty to a company.

      As this Reuters story makes clear, the Boeing workers will retire with their pensions intact, but the airliner that promises to bring more growth to their trade in their state, and indeed to their children, if they had so chosen, is set to be built elsewhere.

      This is, in America, much more a story about what is happening in its society, with the collapse of its middle class, than it is about Boeing.

      http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2013/11/14/boeing-machinists-vote-the-777-x-out-of-washington/

      • Not “patronising” at all. Anyone who believes their pensions are “sacred” live in a clueless bubble.

        “”preserved something sacred by rejecting the Boeing proposal. We’ve held on to our pensions and that’s big. At a time when financial planners are talking about a ‘retirement crisis’ in America, we have preserved a tool that will help our members retire with more comfort and dignity.””(Tom Wroblewski, president of International Association of Machinists)*

        *-Airwise-November 14,2013

        I can’t wait to see what happens in a few years when 1/2 the Boeing line in Washington is shut down.

        Again, maybe this is a “negotiating ploy”-we’ll see.

      • Implying that the “(soon-to-be) unemployed Boeing employees” don’t know their own best interests, is certainly patronising in my book.

  3. I used to go out to the factory there at Everett and see the IAM folks walking around banging their pots and pans to stoke solidarity and think “What a bunch of morons!”. Then they went on strike in 2008 when offered a very good deal in the middle of a recession and we all knew that they were morons. In the long run they can kiss their jobs goodbye!

    • Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean:
      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/eu-forecasts-bigger-german-trade-surplus-amid-policy-criticism.html
      —“To open the bottlenecks to the growth of domestic demand, Germany should create conditions for sustained wage growth,” Rehn said. —

      The run for lowest wages is going to kill the US industry because in the end there will always be an Asian or African country where labor is cheaper.

      Why was it never anticipated to outsource the management to India or Taiwan?

      • MHalblaub, I concur with what you’re saying.
        I also find the notion – often displayed in the comments here and on a.net, as well as in analyst’s statements – that workers should accept any offer from management as sacrosanct and not up for discussion very disturbing, to be honest.

      • No one (at least me) said “should accept any offer”. I think the unions and management should bargain in good faith.

        I also believe management hasn’t been held accountable for their miscues. This unfortunately can’t be changed until the US Govt. changes management/BOD policies/laws.

      • Anfromme- this is done to please the people who buy stoock and not the people who buy aircraft. The US needs higher wages for a host of reasons but wall street wants profits over economic growth. Wall Street wins, too big to fail wins, and the average wage earner loses because we have to pay for the top’s lifestyle off of lower annual income. Asia and other regions have proven they are not as good as a US worker but Wall Street wants what it wants, so they pay the Boeing CEO $21 Mil for doing their dirty work. What if the CEO said he would cut his salary to the wages of the union worker, would that change the way yo see things?

      • Very well put, but sadly waisted on those dinosaurs that think the race to the bottom enhances everybody’s life.

  4. Fat Greedy , ignorant to the reality , union memmbers is fantasy NOW get the lesson of life learned by much of our lost industries , they dont read the aerospace market journals , watch football and are the most ignorant bunch I have ever had to work with . The IAM 751 greed has bancrupt the state of washington . This was no bluff. lay off and senority bumps from everett will start and all low senority , voted accept or reject get laid off now . Thanks to the populous of morons that do not see the true world market

  5. The workers have spoken. Let’s have Boeing offer something better. This notion that workers should take anything there is makes you no better than sweatshop owners in China. How pathetic that people always side with management, even with the current crop of worthless Boeing management, that has ruined the company.

    • How pathetic that people always side with management, even with the current crop of worthless Boeing management, that has ruined the company.

      Well, the 787 debacle aside – which was definitely a management screw-up where the IAM saved Boeing’s a$$ – Boeing’s profits and order intake are actually soaring. As is McNerney’s salary, which went from ~13m in 2009 to ~21m in 2012.
      With that background, I think the IAM members who voted No quite clearly understood Boeing’s offer exactly as it was intended – as an insult.

      • It is bad how the top seems to make so much money while others lose their jobs to ensure money to pay for the top. Unions work to protect their ranks and they tend to feel like every negotation is a lose for the rank. Giving in means showing weakness and the CEO still makes more money, and the world continues on. If you want a union job you deal with these issues, if you want a CEO job, you get the big money. The union wants the CEO job with the union work requirements. The CEO wants the CEO job and he never wanted a union job. Union take the money and go back to work because you will never win. None of this is an insult, it is what it is.

  6. Seeing has Boeing only needed to pick up another 17% of the vote to win, I believe the manner in which the whole affair was orchestrated was a primary factor in it’s downfall. Which is to say it was done in a highly deceitful, threatening manner by both Boeing and the I.A.M hierarchy.

    Boeing, ignoring it’s full and complete knowledge of worker reactions in past episodes, and the I.A.M international’s careless disregard of the unruly Frankenstein monster it created itself makes me wonder if either is capable of any sort of introspective thought. The only ones thinking with any sense of history or heritage were the I.A.M rank and file.

    They weren’t going for more on the whole. They were going for self respect.

    Both tried to clumsily steamroll Joe Average, figuring the timing was with them. A backroom deal, company/union collusion. A Blitzkrieg of propaganda. Desperate entreaties. Overheated rhetoric.A certain sickly sweet smarmyness to their pleas for what they deemed reasonable. Take it or leave it ultimatums.

    A knife in the back by their own union made a ‘no’ vote an absolute necessity, and turned many away from any merit the offer may have had for them. You see, to them, disrespect from Boeing is nothing new, It’s expected. To them Boeing was simply acting within a long established paradigm of bad faith and worse character. But betrayal by their own union? That one hit just as hard, or harder than any perceived bleakness of Boeing’s offer.

    The Governor, whom they helped elect, turned on them. The media for the most part as well. And as usual with any I.A.M -Boeing deal, the wide assortment of hate, viciousness, venom an vitriol from the peanut gallery, who never seem to be around when they get laid off, take a bad contract, or even sacrifice to to supposedly gain jobs for the State as in 2011.

    Under siege from all sides, they lashed out, all fangs and snarls.

    This was a poorly staged opera with a bad plot, unconvincing players, and a worse ending that one could not watch, and think logically at the same time.

    It closed one week after opening.

    The solution? How about treating the workers as adults instead of dupes. As thinking men and women and not mere wage slaves that go supine before a ten thousand dollar idol? How about letting their own elected officials bargain at their direction, instead of a squad of dandified snake oil salesmen from Maryland taking control, and silencing their elected representatives?

    Maybe, just maybe, if the waters have not been thoroughly poisoned, it can work.

  7. I am ashamed by many of the comments here that praise for a race to the bottom and dare to compare aerospace machinist with autoworkers.

    The aerospace industry has nothing to be compared with the auto industry. The technologies, the manual work and the level of responsibility of a a worker must ensure is light years away from the one of a car assembler at Ford or GM.
    Boeing is not in a position that justify any need for its works force to make financial concessions. Benefits are soaring and diverted to stock buyback rather than investment into the future and securing a workforce.

    Boeing has already shown that it did not care in its skilled workforce when the killed the Wichita plant.
    This is not good for the USA.

    • I don’t see what is difficult to understand in the analogy. It’s fairly direct/apt. and the IAM/UAW are also in essentially similar positions, monopolistically seeking to drive uncompetitive benefits at the expense of a whole industry, and very politically active as well. Automation and carbon fiber construction methods are also going to simplify the labor skill set in any case in aviation (bringing the worker tasks/skills closer yet to an auto line. The exception will remain with the engines/electronics.)

      Boeing split off most of it’s Wichita operations years ago.

      • I don’t see what is difficult to understand in the analogy. It’s fairly direct/apt. and the IAM/UAW are also in essentially similar positions, monopolistically seeking to drive uncompetitive benefits at the expense of a whole industry

        Well, it was a vote, wasn’t it? Boeing said “vote yes” and the union said “vote no”. Everybody had a choice. So how is the union doing something monopolistically, and how does a vote in the 751 district bring down the industry as a whole?

        Automation and carbon fiber construction methods are also going to simplify the labor skill set in any case in aviation

        Carbon fibre components have been around in aviation for a good while now, and all indications so far are still that they actually require a far more advanced skillset than traditional materials.
        Also, don’t underestimate the skillset required to develop, engineer and assemble an automobile these days. Also look at how the likes of Mercedes, BMW and even Volkswagen have long understood that bringing benefits and labour costs down isn’t the be all and end all of remaining competitive. Innovation and building a quality product are, though – and having a motivated workforce usually helps in that regard. I’m not saying BMW etc. are utter saints – but they aren’t quite as obsessed with waging wars on unions as Boeing seems to be be.

        So I’m just highlighting that what Boeing and yourself are presenting as a “take this or bring down the company/industry/country/world” choice isn’t quite as clear-cut and “alternative-less” as they’d want you to believe.

      • This is obvious that you have no knowledge of CFRPs and the aerospace industry in general.
        The problems of the 787 are a hard example of how difficult this technology is to set-up and industrialize.

      • Following that logic, who will be flying in those planes if workers are sidelined?
        Something in that equation doesn’t work, but that seems to be too hard to grasp for one particular spectrum of US politics.

      • Following that logic, who will be flying in those planes if most workers are sidelined, or impovershed?
        Something in that equation doesn’t work, but that seems to be too hard to grasp for one particular spectrum of US politics.

    • Sure Boeing is in a positioni CBL. Are you an expert on Boeing’s finances? Got anything to back your claims?

      There are other qualified workers in the United States who are more than willing to do the work at a better cost. Its called “competition”.

      • There are other qualified workers in the United States who are more than willing to do the work at a better cost. Its called “competition”.

        The workers are willing to do the work in WA. Just not under the conditions Boeing proposed. Simple, really. They’re just saying “Your offer isn’t good enough for us.”
        And Boeing knew quite well that this was going to be the result when they put down their offer.

        As for building up a completely new FAL on a green field in a location where you have no experienced workforce, and with no experienced primary/secondary FAL for the same plane to back up the new location – good luck with that.

        Just look at how slowly the Charleston ramp-up is still going, and how slowly the Airbus line in China ramped up, both with primary lines to fall back on for experience/training/guidance. If Boeing management really think that they can avoid and even better that learning curve for a full new FAL that hasn’t got a fall-back location they are still as delusional as they were when they announced they’d do the 787 flight test programme within the space of ~6 months.

      • I will remain discreet on myself but if you are looking for more reference to this public knowledge, just re-read Scott’s previous comment on this:
        “Boeing IAM-Update: The Seattle Times has the latest from IAM 751 and from Boeing pending the vote tomorrow. Ray Conner, CEO of Bo9eing Commercial Airplanes, said Boeing is “under siege” from foreign competitors, including the Japanese, Chinese and Russians.

        Maybe so, but Boeing has been helping these countries and their aerospace industries by outsourcing to them.

        We also find it difficult to have sympathy for Boeing at a time when it is posting record profits and undertaking billions of dollars in stock buybacks instead of plowing the cash flow back into research and development instead of designing derivative airplanes.”
        http://leehamnews.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/odds-and-ends-right-to-work-middle-east-influence/

      • @anfromme…hence why I said “it might be a negotiating tactic” from the start. As you notice, I also dont’ “spare” management either.

  8. “But without the terms of this contract extension, we’re left with no choice but to open the process competitively and pursue all options for the 777X.”

    What a short sighted statement! Yes there are several state that are competing but now only between them, not with the Washington state
    .Having said that they are “with no choice to open the process”, Boeing has lost its main argument towards these states.
    Boeing has cornered itself in moving out, the states can limit their offers to the RTW advantages and a few other minor tax incentives.
    Then Boeing need to build from the ground a new facility and workforce..
    Who said 2019 for the 777X?
    I am really looking forward for next week announcements in Dubai.

    • Boeing hasn’t done any “cornered itself moving out”. Boeing can easily offer another contract and/or simply “give in”. The unions would love nothing more than that.

      • I’m sure the B77X order book during the coming weeks will take care of your “just wait and remember”..;-)

        Ostensibly, it seems “management” have the upper hand here in this round of negotiations. Again, I hope both sides come to a good agreement.

        I don’t see however Boeing’s “demands” too off-base. Maybe some “tweaking”.

        Again, I would also like to see a change in the way the BOD/management/compesnation system as well-which unfortunately can only be done by our spinelss govt.

      • The problem with the 777X is that it is a no fail task. It is planned to be a commercial success hence it should not be an industrial failure.
        Setting-up a brand new assembly line @ a new location & a new workforce at the same time is not really what we call de-risking a program.

        Once again, learn lessons from 787 (bad ones) and also from the current 777 assembly line (a model for the industry!)

  9. Alabama will love to build the new 777X in Huntsville. The current facility is at the South end of the main runway of the Jetplex with land to expand and a large number of aerospace workers looking for a job. AIRBUS in Mobile and Boeing in Huntsville, how sweet!

      • On a different matter, it looks like a lot of communist/socialists from Europe is posting in this forum in solidarity with the unionistas at Boeing.

        Don’t expect too many people to take your post seriously while you’re using these kinds of silly pigeonholes and generalisations.

      • Sorry – that last comment was obviously meant in response to Ivanhoe’s post, not Uwe’s.

    • And Boeing would love you to work for free and no benefits! Charleston is a sweat shop and can not keep a worker employed – not worth it. If you don’t believe me, check out any aircraft contracting site………..

  10. Well, that was the aero-space industry in China laughing so hard it can hardly reach for the champagne. The ultimate beneficiaries of the militant unionism that is raising its head in this country will be the foreign aero-space workers. Is it too far-fetched to believe that Boeing may consider an FAL in China or even Dubai after this.

    All I can say to the unionistas in Seattle is TWINKIES!!

    On a different matter, it looks like a lot of communist/socialists from Europe is posting in this forum in solidarity with the unionistas at Boeing.

    • On a different matter, it looks like a lot of communist/socialists from Europe is posting in this forum in solidarity with the unionistas at Boeing.

      Don’t expect too many people to take your post seriously while you’re using these kinds of silly pigeonholes and generalisations.

      • Well, I certainly dont expect communists/socialists from Europe to take me seriously. And FYI, I am not an American

      • Well, I certainly dont expect communists/socialists from Europe to take me seriously.

        Well, if it were only those that didn’t take you seriously…

        And FYI, I am not an American
        Thanks for letting us know – contrary to your good self, though, I think that somebody’s citizenship/ancestry is largely irrelevant when assessing the merit of their arguments.
        Generally speaking, chiefly hurling about phrases like “neocons”, “neolibs”, “liberals”, “socialists”, “communists”, “idiots”, etc. is indicative of the hurler not having much of an argument to stand on.

      • Re IVANHOE
        The problem with guys like you is that they haven’t a clue what Socialism, or for that matter Communism is. You are definitely one of the navel gazing variety that thinks America’s borders are the end of the world.

    • @Ivanhoe

      There is a reason why unions in private companies in the United States are going way of the dodo bird.

      • Is that perchance hardlinked to the general uncompetitiveness (with very few exceptions ) of US manufacture slightly obscured by rather creative bookkeeping?

  11. “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. ” . . ., sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” [Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871]

    Here’s a seventh impossible thing: in 2009, Boeing had been in talks with the IAM for several weeks before their October 28, 2009 announcement that they were going to build the Charleston factory. However, ground-breaking was only 3 weeks later, on November 20, 2009. In only three weeks, Boeing finalized their deal with South Carolina, purchased the land, met all the environmental impact requirements, selected and paid the architects, obtained construction permits, approved the architects’ final designs, selected the construction contractors and delivered the construction machinery to the site. All that in only three weeks! Yeah, right. During those months of 2009 that Boeing’s Board of Directors was supposedly discussing a new long-term agreement with the IAM, could it be that Boeing had irrevocably poured millions into their South Carolina site and been contractually committed to spend millions more? “

    Let’s try for an eighth impossible thing: fast forward to November 2013. Boeing suddenly offers a ridiculously short-fused eight-year contract extension to the IAM. It is a crude “you take it or we are leaving” ultimatum, without any time for the Union leadership to consider the proposal, present it to the members, and then sit down behind closed doors with Boeing and at least try to make a mutually-acceptable deal. The offer was designed to insult and offend the Machinists, thereby assuring its rejection. Probably to the IAM’s everlasting sorrow, this tactic succeeded beyond Boeing’s wildest expectations,. Once again those greedy union members will take the blame for rejecting the benevolent generosity of the all-knowing and all-powerful Boeing Company.

    After that 2009 scenario, would anyone care to guess how long it will be before Boeing announces a supposedly-new deal to put the 777X in Charleston, or Salt Lake City, or San Antonio, or even Long Beach? Never mind that assembling the 777X anywhere else but Everett would be an incredibly expensive, spiteful, and stupid thing to do, but so what? The folks who brought us the 787 can once again prove that wasting billions on corporate spite and stupidity is what Boeing’s “bust-the-unions-at-any-cost” management does better than anyone.

      • Airbus will be happy. Maybe they can buy Everett and produce some of their planes there? Sorry that can’t be done American’s are not conversant with the metric system, too many mistakes. Before you tell me well they do it in Alabama, nope, they only assemble them like Lego with parts shipped from Europe.

  12. I love it when people talk about labour costs in aerospace work. The solution to the Boeing/IAM problem is quite easy, force Boeing management to drive Chinese cars. They will quickly realise that IAM labour isn’t so expensive after all.

    • See why Europeans don’t buy US run of the mill cars ;-?
      Going by the time the Korean autoindustry needed to progress
      from unuseable to competitive I would expect the same for chinese
      cars in another 10 to 15 years. Like their japanese, korean, .. brethren
      China is eager to learn and advance.
      In contrast the US feeling of exceptionalism has a lot less to stand on.

      • I’m wondering what Airbus will pay experienced machinists to move to Alabama? If 777X isn’t built in Washington the younger ones will need to move somewhere, most likely to Boeing facilities in RTW states, but it is a chance for Lockheed or Airbus to pick up skilled labour cheaply as I am not sure many of them really want to work for Boeing.

      • @Uwe, as another poster said, UAW and IAM worker skills really aren’t comparable.

        I don’t expect Airbus would deny jobs to anyone on the basis of prior IAM membership.

    • All of what is left of the NA auto industry is investing heavily in China, and China is a majority of Buick sales btw. And how many C and D -class cars are built in Canada/US vs. Mexico?

      I bet most Boeing senior management drives European/Asian cars anyway.

      • Isn’t the stuff they manufacture / sell in China under the Buick brand a melange of Euro (Opel/Vauxhall/Fiat) and Korean( Daewoo ) based designs?

  13. Well, Boeing was looking for the ‘excuse’ to shop the location of the assembly site. Now they are free to do it. As a new site would need complete new jigs, could they be considering a different fuse size, or the capability to do that.

  14. Not everyone covered by the IAM actually works on aircraft. One person quoted in the Seattle times is a forklift driver. My experience in the Seattle labor market supports that he will never find a better paying forklift job anywhere else, and that there is not much benefit he brings as a forklift driver of 20 years vs. someone with much less. I have worked on aircraft before – how many of you can say the same? These guys have it good, and wages are falling everywhere. They really shot themselves in the foot, I’m afraid.

  15. It is surprising that in a country like USA (which us Europeans appear as dream county of capitalism) the unions are so strong, and so stubborn. I think moderate unions are a gift for all workers and employers.

    • From Europe ( US style ) management appears about as machiavellian dysfunctional as the US unions.
      Strength lies in moderation. ( James Hilton, Lost Horizon 😉

    • Oh please – what is strong and stubborn in the USA is management capitalism, a peculiar offshoot of real capitalism that detests competition and adores stock shares. Short sighted, short term and dedicated solely to the appeasement of large investors. The sole exception (and in some ways the sole recent successes) are Apple, Ford and before that Microsoft.

      And I note that the attitude of far too many here is ‘wages are falling everywhere so do anything to keep a job’. Presumably they are not sufficiently acute to note that the real issue is why they are falling in the US when the national income level is shooting up.

    • Sorry dream country, you must be living in the past? Yes if Hollywood convinces you, but only then. The reality, a dysfunctional democracy, political corruption, unfettered gun violence, plutocratic tendencies, like 1 % of Americans own 40% of America’s wealth and 80% share 7%, very expensive healthcare, run down infrastructure, growing unemployment and I am sure there are more like justice that depends on your income and the lawyer/s you can afford and so on…. Dreamland indeed????

  16. Leave the 777 to planned obsolescence in Everett. New CFRP 10 abreast, 18″ seats is how Boeing will crush the A350 and set the new gold standard for low cost long haul. The problem isn’t where it’s built, it’s what is built.

    • An all new 777-replacement aircraft would not “crush the A350”, it would simply cater to a slightly larger market size-wise, but a smaller market unit-wise. I agree with you though, that the big question here is what is built. The big danger for Boeing is that it is Airbus which could be building the airplane you’re describing. However, I would go for an internal width (at armrest level) of around 254 inches, which would allow for 11 seats across in economy class, having the same seat-width, armrest-width and aisle-width as that of the 777X (i.e. at 10 across you’d have 19-inch seats).

      Perhaps Boeing’s current management is unfamiliar with game theory and how they should play out their business strategy in the mid to long term.

    • BTW, an all new Airbus aircraft family, with the smallest member designed to take out the 777-900X, could have a fuselage like the ones in the P510 or P451 A3XX-concepts that is featured in the following video. The wing though would be different to the ones in the drawing sketches. For starters, it would only have 2 engines.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmigvHkBQIc

      • If another full length double deck is in order, I figure 1-2-1 on the upper deck for business seats is a good width to go for. Slightly wider than a 747 upper deck.

    • The problem is not only how Boeing is going to crush the A350 it is also related to when!

      777-X is expected to have no wings and a new CFRP fuselage. This will be a new aircraft with just the outer fuselage diameter in common with the legacy 777. Will the 777-X cheaper than the legacy 777? What will be the price difference to A380? How much better will the A350 be in 2020 by PIP? Just look at the rather small difference today between 787 and A330 http://airinsight.com/2012/07/05/the-continuous-improvement-of-the-a330/

      With trouble between Boeing management and workers I smell a 7L7-X.

  17. An aircraft with a 744-style partial, or short upper deck, would IMO the best option. A full length upper deck would make the aircraft shorter and it would have a limited cargo-carrying capability (i.e. volume-wise,) compared to the 777-9X. I agree though that the upper deck should have an internal width allowing for a twin aisle configuration; 1-2-1 in business class and 2-3-2 in economy (i.e. similar to the P510 concept in the video above).

  18. You won’t. See another a380. You will see a new configuration VLA at so,e point w 3 engines and vastly better economics. A bwb config would allow maybe 30 abreast in some part. Imagine the isle and lav config debate. The worst seats might be those toward the outside In the middle under an engine.

    • We may see Airbus developing a 70m long, twin engine derivative of the the A380 sooner rather than later. The A380-800 would be discontinued, while two A388-derivative VLAs could be developed; a 80-81m long A380-900 and a 89-90m long A380-1000. The 70m long (i.e. A370-800X) A380-derived twin would replace the A388. It would have an all new wing and 125,000 – 130,000 lbs thrust engines.

      As for BWBs, they will IMJ come online when liquid hydrogen fuel becomes commonplace.

    • Uhh Lockheed tristar had 3 engines as did DC 10 ( and 727 ) where are they now ??

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