Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
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- Boeing unlikely to meet FAA’s 90-day deadline for new safety program April 18, 2024
HOTR: Boeing bear case: $73bn revenue drop 2020-2025
By the Leeham News Staff
Sept. 9, 2020, © Leeham News: Morgan Stanley has a new aerospace analyst, Kristine Liwag, who initiated coverage on a half dozen companies over two days last week.
Among them, of course, was Boeing.
One of the conclusions in one of her notes:
“Assuming that some orders for growth and those ordered by lessors are cancelled in the 2020-2025 timeframe, we estimate that there is $73bn downside risk to Boeing’s revenue from 2020-2025. We note that our Bull case scenario assumes that the entire current order book converts to revenue.”
Liwag and her team also write, “there is an underappreciated risk that Boeing is particularly vulnerable to cancellations as the 737 MAX grounding (March 2019) opened up cancellation rights (without penalty) for aircraft deliveries that were delayed a year.”
But Morgan Stanley doesn’t let Airbus off the hook
“Boeing and Airbus manufacture aircraft to an order book. White tails, which are aircraft without owners, are uncommon and undesired. When demand is strong and the production skyline is sold out, as we have seen in the past few years, a new aircraft is a scarce commodity that airlines and lessors want. In times of uncertainty, a new aircraft, with a capital cost of $50mn-$200mn per unit, becomes a white elephant.”
10-Year aircraft values
Ishka, the UK-based appraisal and consultancy firm, Friday published its update of values and rents for 10-year old, single-aisle aircraft. Except for the Boeing 737-700, values leveled off beginning as early as April. Rents had a step-down though May before leveling off in June, except for the 737-700. The -700 saw a sharp decline in rents from May.
Fleet utilization
MBA, a Washington (DC)-area appraisal and consultancy, late last month published an analysis of how much of global airline fleet was operational for a week ending Aug. 25.
China airlines lead the way, but evidence elsewhere suggests this is government-driven, rather than market-driven.
However, several carriers are higher than intuition suggests. MBA notes that capacity may not match the percentage of fleets being flown.
“We note that our Bull case scenario assumes that the entire current order book converts to revenue.” With recent all order cancellations and shrink of the business that seems optimistic.
Percentage of fleets operated by airlines seems deceptive. If a 737 now makes 3 flights a day instead of 5, and it’s half empty this metric doesn’t represent utilization or recovery.
I think Boeing should have started NSA work yesterday, paid by tax money if required. Lots of money, but not doing so seems worse.
If there is a $73 bill revenue drop over 5 years or so, the suppliers will take the brunt of that. Places like Spirit wouldn’t survive.
Or Spirit will switch to being an Airbus supplier.
If there are mass cancellations of the MAX, at least some of those orders will shift to the A321/A320/A220.
Spirit is an Airbus supplier, but not on A320/321.
You can’t break into contracts at a whim and it cost big bucks to gear up to make the parts and pieces for an air-frames Spirit does.
Airbus certainly is not going to dump established suppliers (who would fight tooth and nail) for a new one that can take years to get up to standard.
Other than fiddly bits Airbus as far as I know makes all its own fuselages and wings for the A320 series.
TW: Actually Spirit does do A320 family work, on wing components.
I intended my comment to refer to fuselages. Of course it’s a big step, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely off the cards.
And with the way Brexit is currently shaping up, Airbus may soon be looking for a new wing supplier…although I doubt that they’d like to increase their dependence on US companies.
I hope that someone at Airbus has been brewing a contingency plan for this.
Brexit has nothing to do with airplane assemblies. Italy has no problems sending major 787 sections to US. Or France involved in 737 Leap engines. Im not sure of the detail but I remember seeing that all the worldwide parts and assemblies for new planes are tariff free. There are sections made across the field from Boeing in Everett that go to Embraer in Brazil.
Dukeofurl
Although airline parts are exempted from import duties, they’re not exempt from export duties. Boris Johnson is quite capable of holding Airbus to ransom if he doesn’t get what he wants from the EU…remember the saying about cornered cats.
Bryce , thats just wild speculation, and pretty far off at that. UK cares more about Fisheries as a political objective. The Broughton and Filton wing plants are now now owned by Airbus along with the Bristol design centre.
Its like the F1 car racing, most of the constructor teams are HQ in Britain including the Mercedes & Renault teams!. These things dont matter anymore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_constructors
Dukeofurl
Of course it’s speculation…as is every comment that’s made about the future. But nobody knows at this juncture whether it’s “pretty far off” of not.
And I know that the UK plants that you named are owned by Airbus…but it’s a UK Airbus subsidiary, and it falls under UK law.
I’m not talking about political objectives here…I’m talking about what happens in a country that may find itself more isolated than it ever envisaged. If the UK screws up the Irish border, it will be a pariah on both sides of the Atlantic. That’s going to have an effect on the hand of cards that it tries to play.
I absolutely hope that I’m wrong. But — particularly after the unilateral amendment to the Withdrawal Agreement that the UK announced yesterday, and the chilly response that it precipitated in both the US and EU — we’ll just have to wait and see how this pans out. Countries/blocks with an acrimonious relationship generally don’t do much business with one another.
@Bryce, the Airbus wings makes lots of travel Before customers get the Aircraft. PArts produced in Bremen and Spain, shipped to UK for final assembly/baking and completion of “Empty” wing, then outfitting in Germany and on to a FAL in HAM/TLS/US/China if rack it right. Most other Aircraft manufacturers get complete wings from Japan or make them next to the FAL. So Airbus most likely have calculted what is cost/time optimal but then has to politically compromise. Maybe give Germany a full wing production line for HAM FAL and have another in Spain/France and replace the UK performed work with Dassault. The widebody wings most likely are too expesive to move around for its low volume. In crisises like this you have time to optimize and cut cost.
Scott:
I dump in any odds and sodds Spirit does on A320 under fiddly bits.
Certainly Spirit is not going to get whole fuselage or wing work.
As stated Spirit could shift to Airbus in a major way that replaces the 737 work lost and that is simply not going to happen.
https://modernairliners.com/airbus-a320-introduction/airbus-a320-assembly/
Some of those Airbus plants have become ‘ semi independent’ since that graphic was made, while the former BAE Broughton wing plant came under the Airbus umbrella.
Thing do change over time as some contracts expire. The 787 rear pressure bulkhead was made by Airbus subsidiary in Germany, now made by independent Aernnova in Spain.
The 757 was one plane that was shunted around various plants before Boeing ended up with it and shut it down after 911.
Spirit does major work on the A220. Wasn’t it them who got the wing factory?
Spirit got a good chunk of the A350 composite fuselage, section 15, made in North Carolina. Because Airbus observed Spirit did a relatively solid job on the 787, compared to others.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ecCwLMRDOFw/UJ-aywZl8rI/AAAAAAAAAnc/JHWPv0Cz5Bs/s1600/spirit.gif
The contracts were negotiated before the 787 went into service. The A350 fuselage is built in longitudinal panels which are then assembled around ring frames to form barrel sections. The Spirit work is the upper fuselage only of the centre section 15.
Spririt has been a leader in developing advances in composite fuselage sections, including the probable way forward – panels
https://www.compositesworld.com/news/spirit-aerosystems-debuts-next-generation-composite-fuselage-panel
For a possible smaller fuselage composite sections they identify a main point-
“Therefore, to make next-generation composite fuselage skins more competitive, says Hein, they would have to be several plies thinner — and still meet all applicable impact and load requirements.”
Of course, if I need to park many planes, I try to use each once per week to save on maint costs.
Remarkable is that Delta, Lufthansa and Quantas are not doing this.
Ishka makes some mistakes:
Their estimated value on January 1 for the A321-200 was $25.6m before, now it’s $27.5m.
For the 737-800 $22.2m before, now $23.5m.
Ishka centers data points now in the middle of the month when before they described a certain date of the month.
And they use different colors for the same plane, terrible.
White tails are not really a problem. They can produce the most ordered MTOW and MZFW without cabin interior and engines. The car industry is producing unordered cars in mass for decades.
They could also ask other airlines for an earlier delivery and offer a discount, while other airlines have to pay for defferals and if airlines go bankcrupt Boeing and Airbus still have pre-delivery payments.
There is only a problem if they have many white tails, or producing uncertified planes, but they adjust the production rate to it, even Boeing stopped MAX production.
Leon: Product sitting there unsold is a financial burden.
Trying to relate auto to aircraft is like apples and earthquakes. Not even the same broad category.
The aircraft are already sold at a large discount, establish a new low and then that becomes the standard. That is why Airbus does not deal with Ryan Air, they get their 737s so cheap Airbus can’t make any money on the deal.
Right now Boeing has 450 aircraft that are painted but many whitetails. Its an effective rate 40 production to move.
In the meantime they are also making 10 a month (maybe 13 at some estimates). That i s another 140 to move this year.
Of course it’s a financial burden, but nobody wants to change the production rate often. Obviously they will take the smaller burden.
So how much is it to park a plane for a year, interest rates and little bit more.
How many millions did Boeing and Airbus make with pre-delivery payments when airlines went bankrupt?
I still think positive, if there is a vaccine soon it will get better, it only got this bad because of too many fools everywhere.
Tim Clark is sad that the A380 won’t be re-engined. How much would it be if the XWB engines are already there?
I love that last question…even though it’s currently less relevant than it once was. Perhaps Scott can answer it? He did a nice analysis a few years ago of the various re-engining options for the A380.
The XWB is too Heavy, the Ultrafan is a different story and of latest generation that the T900 never was.
Had not RR bought their own 747-400 test Aircraft they could have done the installation on an Airbus A380 test Aircraft for flight test and then it would be 1/2 done for certification of A380neo re-engine or new production (with major surgery at the same time). But not it might be too late unless Tim Clark can twist RR arms, wave some £ in from of RR CFO and open routes buyond the A380-800 current payload range, reengine some of their parked A380’s. Sounds like a job for Marshall Aerospace re-engine the first few Aircrafts…
claes:
The Ultrafan won’t be coming for years…if it ever materializes at all.
How about some variant of the GEnx?
Thanks Claes,
the article I read yesterday,
Clark wanted new A380 and even stretched ones.
@Bryce, the RR Ultrafan First Engine To Test “FETT” is planned for 2021. That is far from certification but “the end of the beginning”. 2:nd Engine to test is normally much more instrumented and follows a 3rd that gives a hint on performance in the testcell. Engine for bird ingestion/ice slab ingestion and Fan blade out follows. Then one Engine makes the trip to Arnold Army Air Base for altiutude test in its wind tunnel, another for Triple redline +1000 cycles block test with cleaning and layout inspection of all the parts. Here can Tim Clark fly to Derby to have a look and decide if it looks promising enough to tell RR he wants some of his A380’s reengined with the Ultrafan. Several other Engine builds are required for turbine cooling optimisation, noice and emissions, FADEC software optimisation, flight test on RR 747-400 test Aircraft and ETOPS flights. The Ultrafan looks to get onto the 787-10 and A350-1000 first to enhance their payload/range performace. So it is an expensive and intense program after FETT.
Claes:
As I understand it, its not a final engine, its purely test.
Its purely developmental, ie not at all intended for production.
Once they run it and figure out the problems (assuming RR can) then they would use it as a basis for a specific application.
While QF might like to fly more aircraft, Australia is closed not just to international travel but some state borders are closed as well. They can’t use their long haul fleet at all, 787s probably won’t fly for a year, they were trying to sell the 3? “8”s before Covid anyway, while a lot of their NBs probably won’t fly for a year or more either.
Sorry, but this is so unrealistic.
“White tails are not really a problem.”
” other airlines for an earlier delivery”
You clearly underestimate a few things.
White tails are a huge problem, it’s basically an unsold product, which lowers your cash (king in crisis) and flattens out the demand.
Why would one take a stock plane, unless it’s super cheap? You shatter your own pricing, white tails are a horrible thing for manufactures, see Airbus and it’s A340 white tales, or Boeing and it’s terrible teens B787.
And in this situation, airlines need everything but not new airplanes. They are all saving their cash, knowing there was no summer bolstering cash, beeing profitable and low demand Q4/Q1 oncoming.
In a world where at least 30% of the fleets are parked and the flying part is seeing lower usage as normal, how do you want to find an airline taking airplanes earlier?
While it might be possible to deliver a few single aisle – Airbus is doing, Boeing has well known trouble with its SA family – it’s (almost?) impossible to find an airline taking WBs.
Long haul intercont traffic basically vanished into nonexistence.
I hear from friends flying Qatar to Jakarta with 19 pax – pretty much the same all over Asia as many travel restrictions are still in charge.
Foreing workers and expats are sent home all over the world, assigned back to their home offices.
It’s a meltdown, and it’s unclear when it will recover.
Surley not in Q4/20 and also not in Q1/21, and estimations are it will rather be 23/24/25 before we reach 2019 levels again.
So with about 50% of existing WB planes on this planet usless right now, who should take at least a 100 mio. bill for a new one?
There’s always a shortage of money, no matter how much you have, but these days there’s an abundance of crews, planes, slots and especially WBs.
Sash, I’m sorry too,
I think Kristine mentioned white tails because of the MAX situation. But that’s not a normal situation, Muilenburg was so crazy to produce all the undelivered MAX in advance.
Airbus is talking with customers about deliveries and deferrals. Airbus knows exactly which plane they should produce.
Airbus can’t easily fire employees, they will do it in a social way and Airbus also have to think about suppliers, who have employees too.
It’s a balancing act, Airbus cut production, but not for the A220. End of last month there should have been around 11 undelivered A220, 104 A320family, 15 A330, 31 A350 and 5 A380.
Last month Cathay took an A359, how is that even possible, and Airbus delivered another A359, A332 and A339. IndiGo took 6 A320family, Wizz 4 and Chinese 7. Customers can’t easily cancel orders, very different to the MAX situation.
Today I read RwandAir cancelled 2 A330neo, but that doesn’t mean they will get their pre-delivery payments back. How much are these payments. I would think payments from Rwand must be much higher than from Air France. If those 2 Neos are already produced I think that there is no way Rwand will get their money back, making these 2 Neos much cheaper.
Scott said a new 787-8 is $115m. 5 year olds 787-8 were $92m in January, not much cheaper. I guess pre-delivery payments from Rwand should be more than $10m for each plane.
Other customers who want deferrals have to pay extra for it. Then there are customers like Croatia with crazy behavior, no way they will ever get their pre-delivery payments back.
There are signs the last days that active covid cases going down in Germany and little bit in US too. Soon other vaccine tests are finished, but they are producing vaccines already. Be prepared to get a shot in few months.
Think positive, it’s much better to have a cheap white tail than firing the workforce. Of course the MAX is another dimension, it’s self-made by Muilenburg, but has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
Do you know how many white tails Airbus has? Which airline originally ordered them?
I didn’t think of A340, but I know German government took one last year for 150m euro. They are very good for poor government use.
Germany has taken its first A350 of 3 ordered before this year. They will replace A340 which were last built in 2012.
Thx Leon,
now I understand your statement.
At least EU govs. have found short work compensation to somehow lower personal cost.
Boeing just lays workforce off and later suffers from losing quality workers.
I wonder about Cathay, HK airlines are hit so hard by protests and crisis, but they seem to get strong gov. support.
They recently announced to leave half the fleet grounded, which implicates their B777 and maybe A330 fleet. They won’t leave A350, and the A330 are easier to fill.
I don’t know how many planes airbus and boeing produce and stock now, but the deliveries were low.
Boeing is really in trouble now, i first thought Covid might even be good for them, taking out time pressure on the Max return, but now Boeing isn’t a company, it’s a mess.
Max is grounded and customer base is eroding.
B787 rate is cut, has quality issues in production and still a huge bill of dev. cost and deferred cost to pay of.
B777x is coming late, expensive and orders are shaking. Which airline needs a large hard to fill twin the next few years?
Might be Boeings civil aircraft is left with 2 subpar products and a good family basically being just the B789, but suffering from past sins.
I would want to be Airbus all day, 3 good families and one that might be the worse plane but a close 2nd, and it doesn’t have a huge bill.
A220, A320neo, A350 are all winning,
and the A330neo is not that bad overall.
Dominic Gates yesterday:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-admits-a-new-quality-issue-on-the-787-and-tallies-more-737-max-cancellations/
Ouch, sobering observations & numbers.
Wow…the order backlog is down 1000 units for the MAX…impressive!
For Boeing, 2020 is the year that just keeps on giving!
I would say its the Management that keep on giving year after yea after year.
We knew this was coming, that there would be further reductions in the order book due to the pandemic, so this is not that surprising. It’s unfortunate but understandable in the given circumstances
Awhile ago, Leeham did an article on accounting differences in the way Airbus and Boeing publish their order books. Scott, would it be possible for you to clarify that for us?
Use the search box to look it up
“Including all jet models, Boeing’s 2020 net order tally, after accounting for new orders, cancellations and those removed from the backlog as no longer solid, stands at negative 932 airplanes.
In contrast, Airbus has won a net order tally of 303 aircraft this year after cancellations.“
Both operate in the same Covid-19 crisis. Airbus was doing very well before March 2020, Boeing not.
The writing is on the wall.
The point was that Boeing is required to remove the orders from the books if the financing for those orders has considerable risk. That has more to do with the industry downturn than it does Boeing. The alternative is for Boeing to offer their own financing through their credit and lease wings, which Boeing is obviously not in a position to do right now.
I would suspect that these financing problems will occur with Airbus customers as well, so their order book may not be entirely secure either. I asked Scott because he has more knowledge of this than I do.
I suspect that cancellations at Boeing and Airbus can (and do) occur for different reasons:
(i) Both manufacturers can experience CoViD-related cancellations/deferrals, by airlines that don’t need the capacity. This has to occur on the basis of negotiation.
(ii) Boeing also has the unique MAX effect, whereby airlines can use the continuing grounding to unilaterally exercise their legal rights to abandon their orders. Such abandonment can be for capacity reasons, but may also be for image reasons, or a lack of faith in the product, or because they want to switch to a more versatile product like the A321(X)LR, which has no equivalent at Boeing.
So, because of (ii), I strongly suspect that the NB cancellations at Boeing will be a multiple of those at Airbus.
I did a rough tally of the monthly reporting on the Boeing order book, and the reasons given for cancellation. The ratio of MAX cancellations due to non-delivery, to those cited as high risk of inability to follow through on the order, was about 1 to 2. So about 1/3 of the cancellations due to grounding, 2/3 due to economic conditions.
Of the 1/3, we also know those did not begin until the downturn, so at least some are related to that as well. The non-delivery allows cancellation without penalty, so an easy call for airlines.
I looked around for similar data on Airbus, but there is little reporting as compared to that available on Boeing. I don’t know whether they have done a similar clearing of unlikely orders.
We have not seen reporting that Boeing cancellations are due to favoring Airbus, nor have the cancellations been reflected as transfers or increases in orders to Airbus. There is reporting that further decline of the Airbus order book is expected. We also know that Airbus is stockpiling aircraft.
So the above is what we have to go by. I suspect neither Airbus nor Boeing will sustain their order books without a recovery in travel.
not a Crystal clear way to give information!
“73Bn fall over 5 years”
what does it mean?
isn’t it possible for such well paid big brains to do their job and give estimates for 2021, 2022 etc…?
that would correct the ridiculous figures we can read “fact set” for instance. in “market insider”..
either they do not know where Boeing is going and they should look for another job!
or they know and it is just very ugly!
too bad to be published…..
Its quite a good estimate in uncertain times. They are giving financial estimates for sophisticated audience , their subscribers. Its not for the general public who dont have a good knowledge of Boeings revenue and order book.
I would imagine the forecast was for Boeing to deliver 4,000 aircraft from 2020 to 2024. Considering what’s going on, I think a reasonable estimation would shave that to 3,000 in a Bull case, or halve it to 2,000 in a middle of the road outlook case
As regards travel within the EU:
The European Commission is currently trying to promote a standard color coding scheme to be used uniformly across all EU states, to replace the convoluted web of national-level schemes currently in place. If this gets through, it should improve the intra-EU air travel situation greatly: many potential air passengers in the EU have indicated that they are more afraid of a sudden change in color code at their destination than they are of getting infected during their trip.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarathiessen/2020/09/06/europe-travel-eu-common-covid-test-rules-no-bans/#780e10526a4a
The EU and Singapore are also trying to standardize procedures to allow smoother travel between them.
Yes, this is what’s really needed for air travel to safely resume. Cooperation and standardization between governments, so that travelers can assess and understand the risks, and plan for them, or for adjustments that may be needed. Right now that’s very difficult. The vaccine also does this but it’s not the only way it can be done.
Oracles at it again. These days if they are wrong they get to try again.
It could be worse, it could be better, it could stay the same.
Stay tuned.
This is some good advice
https://www.ccn.com/cursed-boeing-stock-needs-boot-dow-jones/
Its an industrial index for a reason, they have others for utilities, transportation etc ( which no one cares about). Nothing wrong with Dow Jones creating a new index for software companies…they have around 130,000 of them ( mostly for a few users) including the Dow Formula 1 index.
Unlike the S&P500, the Dow30 has no (quasi-)clearly-defined rules as to which companies are included or not. With GM’s recent Chapter 11 move, it’s likely that the Dow30 will soon be re-configured. That may indeed see Boeing booted from the index.
The S&P500 booted 3 companies last week, and added three replacements (but snubbed Tesla).
https://www.goodfinancialcents.com/how-to-be-listed-on-dow-jones-industrial-average/
The Dow is meant to represent a cross-section of economic activity, so companies within sectors are evaluated by comparative issue weight to be sure they are representative. Weights below about 1.5 may be eligible for displacement by stronger representatives. Boeing currently has a weight of about 4.5, highest among the industrial sector. Honeywell is joining the industrial sector so we will see how they are weighted.
Removal from the Dow does not have negative connotations, it’s just a mirror of changes in the economy. Aerospace is suppressed in the commercial sector but still strong in the defense sector, and Boeing follows that trend.
The point was Boeing was so erratic as to meant it just represented chaos.
That would be another black mark on a formerly well regarded company.
I go back further in the rot having set in to the 737 rudder issue response and the Lauda Air 767 crash.
Clearly the DOW board doesn’t see it that way, based upon the higher weighting they have given Boeing.
There are calls to remove Boeing due to the fall in stock price, but that is representative of what is happening in the industrial sector. The representation is what is key, not the impact on the DOW average. Similar falls have occurred across the board in the commercial aerospace sector.
Also once again, the people who have complained bitterly about the Boeing focus on maintaining stock price, bring up the fall in stock price as something to be used against Boeing. More than a bit hypocritical.
A lot of people may not “see” it that way, but an educated objective observer or commentator can see what the truth or reality is.
Actions are what speaks, not words. People make careers out of lying, that does not make them factual nor does it mandate we believe them contrary to all empirical evidence.
KAC take is not factual. Its simply propaganda.
I think the DOW board knows what they are doing, and it’s certainly not propaganda. If they decide to remove Boeing, it will be in support of their own charter & reasons.
And as I mentioned, it would not imply anything negative about Boeing, even if they did. Companies are selected to best represent economic activity, and that changes over time. A-list companies have been removed and continued to do just fine. But it does not appear that the board intends to remove Boeing at present.
The Dow 30 is reconfigured every year, and changed 3 companies this year but not Boeing.
GM went bankrupt over 10 years ago so isnt ‘recent’
What’s the total commercial aircraft revenue for five years, 300 B? So a revenue drop of 25% would be 75 B.
Spirit got the contract may 2008. Boeing was already in deep trouble, remember the 2007 roll out..
787 issue #4,
now the shims on the vertical stab.
“In late 2019 we discovered a nonconformance related to shims in a section of the 787 vertical fin, and notified the FAA,” says the airframer.
FlightGlobal
“”During a mechanical review, a technician discovered something untoward at the tail end of a Dreamliner. At the spot where the tail joins the fuselage, the mechanic found a small depression. Having reported this to the authorities, federal investigators began scrutinizing huge swathes of the Dreamliner fleet.
Already, this process of scrutiny has thrown up three issues, including one which caused eight aircraft to be immediately pulled from service. There was also a problem discovered with the horizontal stabilizer.””
https://simpleflying.com/boeing-787-dreamliner-fourth-issue/
Edsel? Yugo? Fiat Spider (I knew a guy that acualy got a good one)
Death by a thousand cuts?
Or bad management can hose up anything?
Or we knew about all this stuff and as we are downs and out lets get it done and over with?
Edsel: Maybe closest, actually a good car (ugly but good) and the mfgs process was hosed up and they threw the stuff they did not have time to put on in the trunk and sent em to the dealer.
To clarify, these issues have been self-reported to FAA by Boeing. “Federal investigators” are FAA officials (some of whom are ODA delegates) working with Boeing to understand the scope and magnitude of the issues. Two of the issues are judged not to have safety of flight impacts. The other two create a potential flight safety issue if they occur together. All will be addressed by Boeing.
The FAA is involved with these issues because it’s their role as Boeing’s regulator, and so is a normal occurrence. What started out as individual investigations have been combined as they all have to do with the 787 tail section assembly & manufacturing issues. We will have to see how the FAA ultimately rules on this.
First, the rest of us knew about 2 issues, the fuselage shims and the fuselage surface, old issues. But Rob, who must have known the other 2 issues already (horizontal stab and vertical stab), didn’t tell us about those other issues. I even asked Rob “tell us what comes next” LOL
Turns out that (the FAA !!!) found the fuselage shim issue, the fuselage surface issue and horizontal stab issue and not (Boeing !!!). That’s why it took so long for the FAA to ground planes which were flying for over a year.
And because Boeing didn’t knew for years, because up to 900 planes can have issues, it becomes clear that Boeing never checked their own tolerances, NEVER. The FAA is doing Boeing’s quality control !!!
Rob has the same culture as Boeing’s management, HIDING issues, PLAYING it down, SELF-CERTIFY it and telling us garbage.
Another one, who told us garbage, put the Boeing bulletin together after JT610.
Leon, the assertions you’ve made here are all untrue. All of the release of information has come from Boeing, including the request for grounding of the 8 affected aircraft. Boeing self-reported each of the issues to the FAA voluntarily, over a period dating back a year or more. The only statement from the FAA has been that they are working with Boeing to determine the extent of the problems and any needed actions.
I’ve verified this across numerous sources in the press. So this is yet another set of your unfounded accusations. You have quite a string of them now.
I couldn’t have known or hidden anything because my information is public domain, the same as everyone else. It would make no sense for me to hide things, as it would not make sense for Boeing either.
We’ll wait to see what the FAA conclusions are, but they have made no allegation of hiding or withholding information, or that Boeing has acted inappropriately.
“”that Boeing has acted inappropriately””
The Seattle Times quotes an unidentified FAA engineer saying;
“Grounding airplanes for manufacturing flaws is unprecedented and unbelievable.”
“”this is yet another set of your unfounded accusations””
It’s in the media:
https://simpleflying.com/boeing-787-dreamliner-fourth-issue/
Well said, Leon.
Boeing seems to have an automatic tendency to try to downplay flagrant displays of shoddy engineering — whether relating to design, testing, manufacturing or quality control. I saw this last year on SimpleFlying, where 2 commentators continually tried to defuse any criticism relating to the MAX and/or Muilenberg…and eventually got into a nasty tantrum if they perceived that their arguments weren’t being bought. One was ex-Boeing, and another had a family member working at Boeing.
The fact is that news sites around the world are now full of another wasp’s nest of Boeing failures. And the public perception is, once again, that Boeing took shortcuts and that the FAA ended up discovering what Boeing should have detected in the first place. With this type of dirty laundry being revealed on such a regular basis, is it any wonder that Jim Cramer wants the stock kicked from the Dow30? Investors like companies that are in some way reliable, and Boeing just doesn’t fit that bill any more.
Leon, your quote was one person in the FAA expressing a personal opinion off the record, not an expression of the FAA position on the matter. We know that people in the FAA sometimes dissent from the official view, which is fine but is hardly conclusive evidence. Nor did that person say anything in support of your wild claims.
Bryce, you can’t blame all Boeing support on people who work for Boeing, as you and others here have attempted with me. That is an utterly ridiculous and simplistic claim. It wouldn’t begin to account for the broad base of support that exists. It’s fairer to say that most people have much broader and realistic views.
You both disagree and that’s fine, but those views are in the minority, which is why the MAX will return to service and the 787 will work though it’s problems as well. But you will continue to hope and predict otherwise, I have no doubt, and denigrate those who disagree with you. There is no need to do that if you hold a substantive view.
“”one person in the FAA expressing a personal opinion off the record, not an expression of the FAA position””
The Seattle Times reported it and the FAA didn’t correct it.
Grounding planes isn’t taken easy, we know how long it took to ground the MAX.
“Grounding airplanes for manufacturing flaws is unprecedented and unbelievable” says a lot.
Wild would be not to ground them and instead use MCAS to let them crash.
Leon, the FAA would respond just as Canada did with Jim Marko, it’s not an official position of the agency. Remember that? Another case you built around the comment of a single person, that in the end came to nothing.
Boeing voluntarily grounded the aircraft, as I said, and is reported all over, including Wall Street Journal & Seattle Times. If you wish to believe differently, be my guest. But let’s be clear it’s an opinion, not a fact, same as Jim Marko.
Who would think that there could be something wrong with “Grounding airplanes for manufacturing flaws is unprecedented and unbelievable”, Nobody.
Only trolls would question it.
Everybody should think about that unsafe planes flew for over a year because Boeing didn’t do quality control.
Leon:
Have you ever seen StarTrek? Do you know what the Borg are?
There’s no reasoning with them…they’re just programmed to do what the Borg Queen says. And there’s no shame either.
“Borg” even sounds a bit like “Boeing”.
I’d point out that the 8 aircraft in fact flew safely, without accident or incident. Boeing voluntarily asked to withdraw them from service when they became aware of the risk that flaws could align. Not because the risk had developed into an observed fault. It’s common to withdraw from service when a risk is discovered. That was the right thing to do.
Obviously it’s best that the flaws not occur in the first place. We all agree that Boeing is at fault for the flaws, and that it’s a cultural issue within Boeing that must be fixed.
The problem is the implication that Boeing knowingly created an unsafe condition. If that is found to be true, the FAA will take action against them, and I will accept the FAA’s findings. But I don’t see evidence of that at present, so for now at least, it’s not a valid conclusion.
“”I’d point out that the 8 aircraft in fact flew safely, without accident or incident””
Then, with your thinking, there were many safe MAX flights too, only 2 crashed, when the MAX was never safe.
There should not be any case where a single part doesn’t meet the design tolerance.
If I knew my 787 has faulty fuselage shims, which alone seems not a safety problem, I still would give the plane back to Boeing. It’s like having a lavatory which is not working but the other 4 lavatorys can be used.
“”The problem is the implication that Boeing knowingly created an unsafe condition””
No. Boeing just didn’t do quality control KNOWINGLY. Boeing assembled planes with faulty parts and let the public fly them, when Boeing knew that parts must meet the design tolerance.
As TW said, quality control is done before the horses could leave the barn and not after they left.
Now 900 787 need to be checked. And why only those 4 parts when all parts could have faulty tolerance.
And why only 787, all other Boeings might be fauly too.
I’m an airline. Few months ago I took the offer to change from MAX to 787, when I don’t need the 787 in the first place.
Now I read that all 787 are faulty too. Do I still want them? NO NO NO NO
Can I give them back? Of course, because Boeing never did quality control, when they should know that parts must meet specs.
Now I’m waiting for issues #5 #6 #7 #8 …
At this moment Boeing is still assembling 787 with fauly parts, we just don’t know yet which faulty parts.
It’s only a question of time when a 787 will crash.
What kind of business is this.
Boeing is like China 2 decades ago, most produced parts were thrown into the trash bin.
Leon, this is your usual projection and inflation of the issue to the worst possible case. If the FAA felt that anything like this was true, they would ground every aircraft.
They have the data and are objective experts. You are speculating wildly based on your overwhelmingly negative opinion of Boeing.
Obviously we aren’t going to agree, so I’ll drop this here. Ultimately, only the FAA and other regulators can decide, not us.
“Boeing’s Quality Management System (QMS) failed to detect either the shim or skin surface issue, adding to the FAA inquiry.
Boeing previously argued QMS justified a reduction of 900 quality inspectors.”
Fine tuning …
The 787 issues we know about are kind of old, some months old. The FAA might know more issues, issues we don’t know yet.
I wonder if the FAA informed other regulators about the issues, especially after grounding some 787 when it was reported that nearly all 787 can have these issues.
What would other regulators think now, when most don’t trust FAA. Will China be the first foreign regulator again to ground all 787?
“”Do you know what the Borg are?
There’s no reasoning with them…they’re just programmed to do what the Borg Queen says””
Borg?
There is a Rob inside.
Programmed with Boeingitis?
Queen must be Muilenborg.
Starship … Next Generation … Dreamliner …
Unbelievable how everything connects.
How was it going for them, did they fall into a Black Hole?
EASA got their flight test in.
https://simpleflying.com/easa-boeing-737-max-test-complete/
Yeap, finally.
I wonder what they were checking, how, and what is a verdict. I hope they will tell us more then FAA, will see…
They were check MCAS 2.0 like 1.0 should have been checked.
Does it do what they say it will?
While I have huge disagreement on Boeing management, this has the spotlight and it will be done right.
The 64 billion dollar question is once the heat is off what happens?
Sans reform (ODA goes fully back to FAA) not more self certify of anything and Boeing cleans out its culture of money uber alles, it will revert.
When you have 3 new problems on a well established build (787) then you can offer nothign more than the Boeing inspection process sucks big time and the management is incompetent at best and worse, complicit (they were the ones who cut the inspections)
What we can control to some extent is the FAA which needs more reforms than has been proposed. All ODA should report directly to FAA not this touch feely some of it sort of and some of it sort of does not.
To put it another way, the 737MAX sans the MCAS 1.,0 was a perfectly fine aircraft.
Culture wise, the fact that there is FOD in fuel tanks tells you that Boeing has failed horribly at what they should be best at.
The 787 is am amazingly good aircraft, its being failed more more accurately undermined by Boeing management.
Those failures don’t occur in a vacuum. They are process failures. Interesting they are all non union failures as far as I can tell.
Pablo:
Transport Canada had a series of test flights in the MAX a few weeks ago, and we’ve heard nothing since. You’d imagine that, if there were good news, it would have been made public by now. We’ll just have to be patient…
@Bryce
“You’d imagine that, if there were good news, it would have been made public by now.”
Not necessarily, everything between regulators is quite confident. If result was 100% success we would hear it already, but silence now doesn’t mean failure. We’ll have to wait…
It would make sense if Transport Canada would wait for EASA.
I’m disappointed, could be that EASA did flight testing together with Boeing pilots. Why?
Seems EASA can’t even fly alone. They could have invited every other regulator but not Boeing.
Police never inspect crime scenes with the criminals together.
@Leon
“I’m disappointed, could be that EASA did flight testing together with Boeing pilots.”
It’s quite understandable for me – during testing are checked very different and dangerous scenarios, so best pilots, best familiarised with aircraft, are needed if anything would go wrong. So tests pilots from manufacturer are in place. Regulators are telling pilots from above shoulder what to do and how.
Pilots work as a normal crew, manufacturer and regulator pilots trade off as PF and PM. Manufacturer pilots are there as Pablo says, in case assistance is needed. The flights are planned out carefully in advance so everyone knows what maneuvers must be conducted.
The EASA flights were heavily focused on windup turns, so they were testing the MCAS questions raised by JATR, probably with and without MCAS.
EASA only needs to check why MCAS is needed and the reason might not be allowed by regulations.
Ethiopia is waiting for this. We all are waiting for this.
Is EASA and Transport Canada good enough to find the reason?
Otherwise keep MCAS out.
EASA also did some high speed runs at low altitude, they may have been testing the manual trim wheels.
And there’s a 9-day PowWow of various regulators starting on Monday in London, to discuss training issues associated with the MAX:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/faa-to-begin-key-boeing-737-max-training-review-on-monday-in-london-idUSKBN2622VP
This is the JOEB review which is part of the FAA roadmap for RTS, as it concerns pilot training requirements. It’s among the last steps.
European airlines have posted their support of the FAA proposed AD, with some changes to the QRH.
As far as results of Canada and EASA flight testing, those are unlikely to be made public, they will be shared with the FAA, just as the FAA shared their test results with them.
The discussions will be internal and we won’t know unless the FAA alters the proposed AD, or the other regulators add their own conditions for RTS. If no substantial changes take place, we’ll know the test results were satisfactory.
Starlux (Taiwan) has announced that it has ordered 8 A330-900 neos, in addition to the A350s that it has on order. It has also ordered an additional A350
So there’s still some faith in the widebody market.
https://onemileatatime.com/starlux-airlines-orders-airbus-a330-900neos/
I read, because Starlux couldn’t get the A350 fast enough.
Air France and British Airways will take their A350 too.
BA said shortly after getting their first A350-1000 that it consumed half the fuel of a 747-400 on a transatlantic trip. Transatlantic traffic (premium-heavy) is a money spinner for them, and they’ve retired their 747-400s, so I imagine that they’ll be eager to get a replacement a.s.a.p.
Good business for Starlux to get new modern aircrafts for very ocasional prices. A330 are smaller, so easier to fill in post-covid reality. And surely quite good business for Airbus.
It looks bad for Boeing.
I checked the undelivered orders of airlines which use both 787 and A350. Those airlines should compare the performance best.
69 orders for 787, 182 for A350, 196 for A350 + A330neo.
In widebody sector it looks bad for anybody now 😉
Very interesting, Leon.
I hope a lot more A330neos are ordered…the A330 is the only in-production aircraft with a 2-X-2 seating configuration (apart from the top deck of an A380), which I always find preferable over 3-X-3.
I wonder why 2-5-2 isn’t used for 9-abreast. I saw it in a movie once.
@Leon: early DC-10 configs did this. The center in 5 has to climb over two people to get out (though admittedly so does the window seat in a 3×3).
Here’s another one for you:
Instead of 3-3-3, how about 2-2-2-2…i.e. with an extra central aisle.
Sure, it costs you 1/9 of your potential passengers (assuming 100% load factor), and you have to do some creative things with overhead bins, but now 75% have direct aisle access, and you can potentially have much faster boarding and de-planing.
2-2-2-2 looks cool, but it wouldn’t help the 787 with seat width. Seat width is much more important than a 3rd aisle.
787 was just poor designed from the start.
For those who say Boeing started the 787 in 8-abreast, I would say it was only a PR joke for comfort and Boeing’s PR machine was running with full force offering 95.5t OEW, how did that work out.
Leon
Nothing will ever allievate the discomfort in 3-3-3 Dreadliner…short of reverting to 2-4-2.
But 2-2-2-2 might be fun in an A350 or 777, for example.
Thanks Scott,
I found 2-5-2 in the 777 airport planning pdf too.
On the subject of the MAX, more news on Reuters today.
Once again, The Borg in all their glory.
One of the persons involved is now working on the 777X…scary…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max-congress/boeing-execs-defend-safety-decisions-on-737-max-development-idUSKBN26404A