the new Boeing 787s -- don't let them pass you by (in 2008)!

I feel your pain as a 6'4" guy. Legroom is driven by the airlines' seating configuration, not the manufacturer. Our discomfort is another row or two of ticket revenue. NPR has an article that suggests nothing will change. Would like to see officials load their own families on a 90-second evac trial, and then praise seating arrangements.

Note to self - fly airbus

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190403/p2g/00m/0bu/002000c

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html

Not great.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer

not great.

Boeing Has So Many Grounded 737 Max Planes Waiting to Be Fixed They're Parking Them in the Employee Parking Lot

In a bit of good news, one company is interested in buying quite a few of them.

Boeing on Tuesday won its first order for 737 Max planes since the jets were grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes. The vote of confidence from British Airways’ parent sent shares of the manufacturer sharply higher.

International Consolidated Airlines Group, or IAG, signed a letter of intent at the Paris Air Show to order 200 Boeing 737 Max planes.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/18/british-airways-parent-places-first-new-order-for-boeing-737-max-since-grounding.html

For Seattle ilxors, you can view the parking lot in the jalopnik article from the south park bridge. It’s amazing, maybe 30 of them sitting along the river, iceland air and thai smile and turkish and so many others i don’t recognize

Boeing 737 MAX 8 Likely Grounded for Rest of 2019 After New Concerns Raised

Some of the language in that article is a maybe a little bit hyperbolic.

This is a bit more measured, Boeing still don't come out of it very well at all:

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/faa-and-boeing-initially-disagreed-on-severity-of-catastrophic-737-max-software-glitch/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

That’s a good read.

Although it doesn’t really offer any solutions- just a very well researched and well written description of the problem. I’m mildly suspicious of the expert graybeards from central casting that he quotes throughout the piece, because it all seems a little one-sided, but then again the Indonesian and Ethiopian crews that are still around to talk are apparently not allowed to.

Boeing pilots' messages on 737 MAX safety raise new questions

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/

What is your own personal practice on flying Boeing aircraft now?

“When I worked on the 747, the 767, the 777 in Everett, those are beautiful planes. And the people there fully understood what it took to build a safe and airworthy aircraft. I hate to throw the entire label over the whole product line. But as far as the 787, I would change flights before I would fly a 787. I’ve told my family — please don’t fly a 787. Fly something else. Try to get a different ticket. I want the people to know what they are riding on.”

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30470973/boeing-737-max-employees-emails/

I don’t want to read this. I’m just posting it here

"This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

But the the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee provided excerpts of those messages to Bloomberg News that un-redacted the Indonesian carrier’s name.

“Now friggin Lion Air might need a sim to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity. I’m scrambling trying to figure out how to unscrew this now! idiots,” one Boeing employee wrote in June 2017 text messages obtained by the company and released by the House committee.

In response, a Boeing colleague replied: “WHAT THE F%$&!!!! But their sister airline is already flying it!” That was an apparent reference to Malindo Air, the Malaysian-based carrier that was the first to fly the Max commercially.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-14/lion-air-idiots-sought-more-max-training-boeing-thwarted-it

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22165956/boeing-737-max-flight-brazil-gol-airlines

Gol Airlines told the publication it plans to use the 737 Max in regular service starting later this month, and passengers who don’t want to fly on the plane will be able to exchange their tickets.

all airlines need to do this imo

You can go to FlightAware.com and enter your flight # which will give you a lot of data about that flight; below the flight map you'll see a log of scheduled flights and what aircraft will be used, plus a record of what aircraft were used in previous flights.

Some airlines' websites, e.g. JetBlue's, tell you the aircraft used for each flight when you go there to do your booking. I wouldn't say they're accurate 100% of the time but I think they generally are.

Another 737 gone missing after taking off from jakarta

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-not-spirit-mis-installed-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-max-9-jet/

The fuselage panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month was removed for repair then reinstalled improperly by Boeing mechanics on the Renton final assembly line, a person familiar with the details of the work told The Seattle Times.

If verified by the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, this would leave Boeing primarily at fault for the accident, rather than its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which originally installed the panel into the 737 MAX 9 fuselage in Wichita, Kan.

That panel, a door plug used to seal a hole in the fuselage sometimes used to accommodate an emergency exit, blew out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 as it climbed out of Portland on Jan. 5. The hair-raising incident drew fresh and sharp criticism of Boeing’s quality control systems and safety culture, which has been under the microscope since two fatal 737 MAX crashes five years ago.

Last week, a different person — an anonymous whistleblower who appears to have access to Boeing’s manufacturing records of the work done assembling the specific Alaska Airlines jet that suffered the blowout — on an aviation website separately provided many additional details about how the door plug came to be removed and then mis-installed.

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

KAYAK Lets Users Filter Out Boeing 737 Max 9 Flights After Door Blows Off Plane

oof

Nationalize Boeing

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/24/delta-air-lines-plane-nose-wheel-falls-off

More concerns as Alaska Airlines flight arrives at PDX gate with open cargo door
https://www.koin.com/news/alaska-airlines-safety-concerns-cargo-door-pictures-portland/

o_0

Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

Damn

Also this today https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/03/11/at-least-50-injured-on-latam-airlines-boeing-787-after-technical-problem-causes-sudden-drop-in-altitude/

Jon Oliver did a good piece on them last week, the gist of it is their only priority right now is shareholder value

I know nothing about financing, stocks, etc. But it seems to me that if I owned a business that I really cared about, I would never take it public.

Really good article that sums up Barnett's (the now dead whistleblower) complaints.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/