Is Airbus HELPING Boeing?!

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Can Airbus help, in Boeing’s Recovery? We know that Boeing desperately need to get their house back in… some kind of order, and at the same time their headaches and finances mean that they struggle to compete with Airbus, both in terms of sales and in the prospect of designing new aircraft, any time soon.

But could Airbus somehow have a POSITIVE role to play, in Boeing’s efforts to get back on their feet? Or, on the opposite end… could Boeing “force” Airbus to spend some money in the process?

Stay tuned!

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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.

[tcmxiyw]

Boeing’s CEO is an accountant. Airbus’s CEO is an engineer who came up though the company in R&D.

[vivektulja]

As an aerospace engineer who holds Boeing in the highest esteem, it breaks my heart to say this, but American companies are no longer into engineering. They are into money games, stock prices, quarterly profits, management fad du jour, and they have nowhere to go but down. The country that produced the most brilliant engineers and scientists who could put a man on the Moon half-a-century ago because of its critical thinking ability, is now in the optimism business. Sad state of affairs.

[kernelpanic]

I'm living in Toulouse and have a lot of friends working on Airbus assembly line. They actually complain a lot with parts build by Spirit Aerosystems, saying that provider is probably their worst in terms of quality and number of rejected parts. Airbus is under pressure with that kind of suppliers as that leads to a lot of time loss. So I think that if Airbus wants to buy some of the factories from Spirit is also to gain control on quality and improve it.

[travisfabel]

One thing you have to remember about modern upper corporate management is that they don't care about the effects 10 years from now because they won't be there anymore. So if it can maximize to their advantage now in the shorter term, something that might kill them 10 years from now is not of consequence. That will be someone else's problem

[nigelbond]

I also work for a large American company that behave in a similar fatuous manner to Boeing. They talk a good talk, drive down costs, care little about quality or personnel. Their only focus is their dwindling profits and appear not to understand that a happy workforce and happy customers make for a strong profit margin. Putting the cart before the horse.

[iloveaviation-burgerclub-a]

I worked for Airbus and Bombardier, A380, A400M, A340-600, A350, BD100, all HLS and CC. And safety was never a topic any compromise was made. Not even hair thin. Our counterparts were technicians of the highest grade such as Willi Elmers and no matter what it was technology, process stability, safety, maintainability, performance... that was nothing to reduce or degregate. We found solutions to be cost effective by finding new production methods, better logistics and interchangeable parts. Not by using a simplex design for critical Class 2 or Class 1 parts/units/systems to save the buck. I once was into offering a PCU for 747-800 and noticed the tendencies. No BAFO for us back then. What a luck. Boeing was the most respected company in aerospace on level with NASA, BAE, NACA. The ruinners are rich now, noone seems to have a possibility to make them accountable for their devestating doing. And I fear that nothing will change because we don't want to change. Because we pay respect for wealth and not for what a man achieves. Productive people are called loosers, and it is the managers and bean counters, the betrayers and frauders everyone looks up to.

[jfmezei]

When Airbus started, it did not own any of its production facilities. Aérospatiale, BAe Aerospace, as well as some companies in Spain and Germany (forget their names) provided production facilities and there were huge fights/delays on who would build what. Airbus then went through a transformation where it became a corporation owned by those companies, and who bought those facilities from those companies at which point it could better coordinate who would do what. Eventually BAe pulled out and sold its shares in Airbus, but Airbus was already stuck with the Boughton plant and decided to keep it even though it was no longer necessary (in past, because Airbus was government created, it needed to create jobs in every country whose governments helped create Airbus).

In essence, Airbus went in the opposite direction of Boeing to consolidate its production into its own facilities for the most part.

[DrewJmsn]

In 40 years of being a consumer, employee, contractor, and now a business owner and employer, I cannot recall a single example where outsourcing a key production process resulted in a company's long term strength and success, but so many examples where such decisions led to a company's demise. No matter how it is arranged, it's simply not possible to effectively control and oversee an outsourced layer, and that layer will require its own profit margin with its own incentives and temptations to maximize those profits, an ultimate conflict of interests.

There are too many boardrooms occupied by too many stuffed suits who are too easily tempted by deceptive promises and overoptimistic numbers, blind to their impact on the long term strength and integrity of the company. A decade from now, nobody will remember Spirit Aerosystems, but everyone will recognize Boeing whether or not they are still in business. Why, WHY relinquish control of critical aspects of your production to a company no one knows, no one will remember, and that has relatively little to lose??? As a small time and relatively new small business owner, even I can clearly see the foolishness of this thinking.

My other observation... Although Airbus hasn't exactly extended a hand to Boeing, Petter's point reminds me that competitors rely on each other in many ways and they should not automatically be adversaries. It is in the best interest of both Boeing and Airbus that the other survive and remain strong. If either fail, the void will be filled by the likes of Comac, UAC, or some other company from a place that doesn't play nice on the global stage. That won't be good for anyone, especially the survivor of the Airbus/Boeing rivalry. If you are a firmly entrenched supporter of Airbus or Boeing hoping the other will fail, you should carefully consider how they actually need each other and maybe reframe your perspective before your wish comes true.

[major__kong]

I'm experiencing a similar disaster with my employer, who happens to be the US federal government or at least my part of it. The system has been infected with box checkers for a very long time, and it's finally reached a critical mass. Add to that policies box checkers have implemented have gutted our core competencies to the point where we can't do engineering anymore just pushing paperwork to have contractors do the engineering. So when something that requires critical thinking comes along, we struggle hard. Boeing is in the same position. And the solution is the same. You literally have to fire a lot of the bureaucracy en masse and identity the people who know how to get things done no matter what and get them into leadership positions.

[JUmana-hbfi]

I just want to say that this channel, and Mentour Pilot, are, BY FAR, the most interesting channels I have ever seen on YouTube in a very long time. The way that everything is explained is very well structured and incredibly interesting and thoughtful. I have found myself seeing these videos every night after work, intrigued about the Boeing/Airbus situation, aviation news, and incidents/accidents. If I ever had some interest in the aviation industry, your channels have raised it a 1000%. Thank you very much for your work on these channels.

[cuatro]

For the time (other people have said this) this is what happens when you let accountants and business majors into management.

[TakoyakiStore]

Every time I've seen a company contract work out that they don't want to do, or add middlemen in their process it always starts out cheaper than doing it themselves directly, but over time it ends up being more expensive. Always. You cannot have more people involved and expect them to not want to get paid more.

[Bob-nchz]

1:45 also around that time MDD management decided that their core *purpose* was to provide revenue for shareholders. That is also why they moved the HQ to Chicago: they wanted to be closer to finance, and not bothered by the complains of manufacturing. These are things they literally stated at the time.

And I would not be as optimistic as Peter on management getting its sh*t straight: in 2022 they moved HQ even further away from manufacturing to Virginia, in order to get closer to the fed and pentagon. And a proposal by a shareholder to move the HQ back to Seattle early this year was rejected by the board without being brought to ballot as interference with management prerogative.

[AnomymAnonym]

Question would be, do they even deserve being helped at this point, we should await the investigation, but the whistleblower did die under very suspicious circumstances for putting it mildly.

[THIRV]

Just for info, the Broughton facility in North Wales wasn’t Hawker Siddeley during WW2. The airfield was developed during WW2 as a shadow factory, all effort was made to keep its existence unknown. It was owned by Vickers Armstrong. In the late 1940s De Havilland took the site over. Hawker Siddeley followed, and then British Aerospace, BAe Systems, and finally Airbus.
The runway and airfield are known as Hawarden Airfield, CEG being its code.
As for Airbus helping Boeing, it’s of course widely known that the order book for Airbus is quite a few years solidly booked out, unless more capacity can be developed in the near term of course. It strikes me that Airbus almost NEEDS a fairly strong Boeing…it would actually not benefit if things got worse for Boeing. Certainly from Airbus there’s a big respect for Boeing and all that it’s achieved. There are emerging competitors of course….. Embraer are doing a fabulous job, with their range of commercial a/c. It remains to be seen what inroads China, Japan, and Russia can make in the decades to come, to name but three.
Another aspect to keep in mind regarding Boeing success helping Airbus is, Airbus’ supply chain is often shared with Boeing. Those suppliers depend on order books from both the giants. If Boeing really struggled, it would make things less sustainable for the suppliers to Airbus which make structures and components large and small for both companies.

Thanks as always for your amazing presentations. ❤

[mblu]

I’ve been working for Boeing since 1985 mostly on chinooks and ospreys and I’ve seen them trying to ruin their business several times. They had a world class wire harness factory that I spent several years working in. In the same building they assembled various pieces of equipment for the aircraft such as power distribution and avionics equipment. At that time any repairs and improvements such as wire lengths as well as parts for damaged components were immediately available. They also used the wire shop as an entry level position and a well of talent they could tap into. In 1995 they off-loaded the work all the equipment and parts, they couldn’t see that they were going to lose control of a large part of their production. We the workers told them that they were now at the mercy of whoever they had given the work to. The accountants were so happy and the products have been going downhill from there.

[deanmartin]

I see the Boeing parts of Spirit being sold back to Boeing, the A220 wing plant acquired by Airbus, and the rest remaining with a smaller Spirit.

[geralddegraaf]

I worked for an areospace supplier that made parts for Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed, and Bombardier.

Each supplier had its own quality management, which included instructions what to do with a missing part or which tools were permitted to be used, foundries you could order metal from and so on. So Airbus just managed this better. Hearing about the use of improvised tools or testing liquids is something Boeing should have caught. Even if they buy them how will they catch these items.

[theguyfromsaturn]

One of the things I have noticed watching both Boeing, but also game companies like Wizards of the Coast and Unity , and HP's position on customers and their ink subscriptions, etc., is that one of the key elements of a company's well being does not seem to be at all considered by management. There is a fundamental deficiency in the formation of these management types. I think that customer/community good will is a key component of sustained viability. Trying to squeeze the last dime out of customers and similar strategies cannot be undertaken without considering the effect on goodwill. Your company's production and costs may not have changed a thing, but if you lose the goodwill of those who spend their money on you, you may become non-competitive overnight.

[AadidevSooknananNXS]

Please don't ever stop making in-depth LONG-form content! This is EXACTLY the kind of stuff that I love watching