Does Boeing Stand a Chance Anymore??

---------------------------------------------------
What does Boeing’s latest crisis tell us about their position compared to Airbus? How far behind Airbus are Boeing today, and could they recover this lost ground? Things aren’t looking good for Boeing, to say the least, but… there may be a thin ray of hope for them, after all.

Stay tuned!
-----------------------------------------------------
If you want to support the work I do on the channel, join my Patreon crew and get awesome perks and help me move the channel forward!

Our Connections:

Social:

Download the FREE Mentour Aviation app for all the lastest aviation content
-----------------------------------------------------

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

[mikaluostarinen]

Boeing could make a profit at the last quarter of 2023 because of huge savings on bolts.

[peteorengo]

-Warning, I’m a Boeing fan. I have worked at Boeing and now fly the 787 for a living. Here’s my opinion:
Boeing management insists in operating under a business model that has been disastrous for decades now. This started way before the MD merger. They now find themselves in the awful position of not having money to bring more of the manufacturing back under their control, not being able to certify new airplanes on time and much less being able to develop a new design to replace the troubled and tired 737.
Their management has to go. From the board of directors to their top management, all should be replaced with competent leaders. That is the only way to fix Boeing. Unfortunately, I do not see it happening. The company is run by arrogant people that know the government will keep them afloat no matter what.
I feel terrible for the Boeing employees. Working there used to be a source of pride. I hope for their sake that things do change.
Thank you Pieter for another amazing video.

[qfan]

Boeing: I need a boring year.
Boeing door: this is too boring, let me go

[IainShepherd]

6:54 oh man that’s hilarious
“Boeing just needs a boring year in 2024”
[spongebob French voice] ONE DAY LATER

[joergquasnowitz]

I worked as a contractor in Boeing engineering over 10 years ago. At the time i was tasked with evaluation of the production processes of the 787 tail section. After listing major issues with the design that would lead to near Impossible manufacturing challenges, I was asked to look into other areas as well in the next month. 2 months s later, an executive order came down, that would stop the whole project. That is all you need to know about manufacturing challenges at Boeing and their attitude towards quality.

[smalltime]

I think the fact that flight search engines let you filter out maxs now is going to be their biggest challenge.

[VinceNet]

It'd be good if you could cover what Airbus is doing differently to avoid the pitfalls of Boeing's management style (or any other detractors)

[carey]

So in summing up, your tankers have clothes, parts and tools left in their internal spaces, you bid on VC-25s at 20% (so far) of their actual cost, your years delayed crew capsule is optimistically 2 years behind it's most recent years delay, people are randomly drilling holes in your aft pressure bulkheads, and after all that your door plugs are flying out of your brand new airplanes.

[MrBanzoid]

Boeing started to go downhill when they concentrated on building shareholder value rather than building aircraft.

[doryds]

From what I have seen, MBA managers tend to regard quality control as a negative item in their balance sheets. The problem is that those balance sheets usually don't take into account the kind of blowback that is possible from two crashed Max-8's and a blown door plug on the Max 9.

[fredferd]

Captain Mentor, you are a serious, dedicated, unbiased, and completely honest aviation analyst. As such, we salute you. Your title, "Does Boeing Stand a chance anymore?" is in itself highly significant. The fact that such a subject could even be considered by an observer such as yourself (or any of the rest of us) indicates just how far down the slippery slope Boeing has fallen. Public opinion creates its own reality, and the gradient increases as time goes on. When the slope goes vertical, Boeing is going to be in deep trouble.

[qtdcanada]

All of the losses suffered from fixed-price defense contracts are clear indication of Boeing's engineering weaknesses and/or serious disconnects between Engineering/Manufacturing Departments and Sales/Marketing (and Upper Management)! Alarm bells went off years ago about losses incurred from the USAF KC-46 aerial tankers (based on the Boeing 767) and to lesser extent USN P-8 (based on the Boeing 737-800).
It is interesting to note that Airbus took 8 years, from cleansheet design in 2006 to flight certification in 2014, for the world leading A-350. Boeing is taking likely 12 years to modernize and upgrade its flagship B-777X from a proven airframe.

[StringPassion.]

Using expert accountants to assure quality control was brilliant.

[robertmiller]

Boeing is an absolutely glaring example of Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy. "In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely." I believe one way to improve this situation would be to increase the salaries of the engineers and all workers who actually build the planes. Then fire half the managers and executives, and cut the salaries of the managers and executives remaining.

[TheGodpharma]

I spent my career in the pharmaceutical industry, in quality and regulatory affairs. Safety disasters in pharma may not normally be as dramatic and well publicised as in the aero industry, but if anything I'd guess more lives are potentially at risk. Even so, management, and especially those in sales and marketing, wanted us to bend the rules as far as possible, and the constant pressure can be difficult to resist, day in, day out. In one company I worked at, we were known by marketing as the "sales prevention department". I wonder if it's like that at Boeing.

[DanielinLaTuna]

The more Boeing is in the news, the more people will actively look at what aircraft are being flown to their destinations.
I recently booked a trip from LAX to PDX on United Airlines, based on the two legs of the trip consisting of Airbus and Embraer aircraft, vs Alaska and Southwest flying 737 Max.
I think more people are coming to the same conclusions

[trthib]

One of the major problem that has been ignored here is that this is the type of things that will make extremely difficult to get young people to want to work for the company in the long run. Even smaller plane manufacturers will probably seem like a better bet.
If I was an engineer or a mechanic out of university I'd rather have daher, piper, texxtron or gulfstream on my CV than boeing. At least potential future employers wouldn't assume my work experience is synonymous with bad habits

[kenbrown]

maybe the union should consider writing a clause that requires 51% or more of boeing's senior management to be aircraft engineers. I mean, the biggest change made between their years of dominance in the airplane industry, and their current series of unfortunate events is that their management went from people who build airplanes to people who build profits.

[peterbonham]

Always felt they started going downhill after the Dreamliner battery fires in 2013. Probably started well before that, but that was my WTF moment

[AAronFpv]

This is really hitting home for me. I've been a fan for a long time and always enjoy your videos. It's always nice to have perspective on your life, I feel like I go through the same struggles and have been in a bad spot for a while. I've lost interest in a lot since my last relationship and I'm glad you posted this maybe it will be what I need to get myself back on track. I've been given a lot of great opportunities that I'm afraid I'll toss away if I don't get ahold of my mental health. I hope you get yourself back on track as well the first step is recognizing the problem and knowing where you stand.