Tag Archives for boeing 737 MAX.
Many readers believe that the Boeing 737 MAX should never fly again. I disagree. I believe that while there were design flaws, those have been addressed, and regulators are inherently conservative and so it’s likely taking longer than it should to allow the plane to operate commercial flights. I will fly the aircraft again, and you will probably will too.
The return of the 737 MAX is like every other delay on American Airlines. You show up at the gate before scheduled departure time, because the flight board says you’re leaving on time. But there’s no aircraft at the gate, so that’s impossible.
The plane pulls up, passengers flood out into the terminal, and you stand there waiting. American updates your new departure time, but it isn’t until after that time passes that the departure time gets updated again. You have a mechanical delay and American keeps pushing your scheduled departure out 10 minutes at a time, updating with a new time only after the last one passes.
It is not the official position of any safety agency at this point, but regulators are discussing a whole different approach from Boeing’s software fixes as they consider what it will take to re-certify the 737 MAX.
The higher rate of growth in the airline’s seat capacity next year comes from moving forward when they expect the Boeing 737 MAX to fly again. Parker, of course, has been overly optimistic on the return of the MAX before, suggesting re-certification of the plane was ‘really close’ back in May.
While American’s claims against Boeing will likely be settled amicably, the airline has a hard case to make that Boeing ought to reimburse them for any lost profits when it’s more likely that the grounding of the MAX simply averted losses.
Self-certification dates to 1956. It is not part of a deregulatory push. It’s a system that has worked remarkably well. The FAA has approximately 400 engineers to work on aircraft certification. Boeing has 45,000 engineers. The FAA cannot possibly do all of the work themselves and we wouldn’t want to shift the best engineering minds away from creating product to oversight.
Delegation isn’t a strictly-U.S. practice, or one which was limited to the MAX.
I’m here at United Airlines Media Day in Chicago and United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz said that relying on commitments from Boeing and the FAA that the 737 MAX is “is not going to be enough.”
The underlying issue isn’t “will Southwest Airlines try to buy another airline” it’s “how does Southwest Airlines grow without the Boeing 737 MAX in service and continued production?” And if Southwest isn’t in a position to grow its business, it can’t command the historically high price-earnings multiple it’s enjoyed relative to peers in the U.S. airline industry.
Mergers are costly. They rarely generate the promised benefits. They involve combining IT systems, fleets, unionized work forces, and company cultures. They’re fraught with risk. Southwest Airlines needs the MAX to be flying again soon, and likely to act on a plan to diversify its fleet (with the attenuated costs and complexity that brings) — potentially with Embraer E2 jets.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says that the plane is safe to fly today – with American’s 737 MAX and using American’s pilots – suggesting that the delay in bringing the plane back into service is so that it’ll be safe even when operated by other airlines.
He dishes on how they’re scheduling the plane’s return to service, and whether or not delays have been the result of politics.
Southwest, American, and United have all announced that they’re cancelling Boeing 737 MAX flights into early November although the truth is they don’t know when it will fly again. Each previous cancellation has been followed by another one.
Except… while United announced that they were pulling the 737 MAX from their schedule, they apparently forgot to actually do it.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
