Because Boeing were on such a good streak already…
I feel uncomfortable as a taxpayer having inadvertently supported Boeing and they are literally falling apart.
You think Airbus is gonna expand its capacity to build even more planes?
According the Airbus themselves, they finished 2023 with a backlog of 8598 orders, and they delivered 735 planes that same year. They are occupied for years ahead and it’s probably not so simple to increase production.
Edit: the source: Orders and deliveries / airbus.com
Boeing laid off about 900 QA people back in 2019. Now they are reaping the rewards
Elsewhere: Airbus Christmas party budget doubles.
Which, as we know, is not supposed to happen.
I don’t know where to put it but here’s about MCAS anyway, the cost-cutting system meant to keep Boeing in the game, but also took over flight controls sometimes and nose dived planes straight into the ground, causing hundreds (some say thousands!) of fatalities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Augmentation_System
Between door bolts missing, virgin airlines missing wing bolts, this nose wheel, etc
It almost feels like some kind of related systemic error in the very thorough maintenance documentation required for aircrafts, or a large scale sabotage of some sort.
Any regulatory agencies that enforce this sort of stuff being defunded, understaffed, or de-toothed in the last 4-8 years?
That’s what this smells like, and we should really be getting ourselves ready for more of this in other industries.
I don’t know about the regulatory side, but Boeing gutted their experienced engineering corps starting about 10 years ago. In the pursuit of profit of course. I think we’re seeing the effects of that finally coming to the fore.
My understanding of the role of the regulatory agencies for stuff like this is that they can ground a model of plane if they believe there’s a systemic issue. Like we saw with the MAX.
