<story><title>Boeing Weighs Cutting or Halting 737 Max Production</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-weighs-cutting-or-halting-737-max-production-11576448990</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pcurve</author><text>There have been plenty of design flaws in commercial jetliners and in most cases, reputation is recovered.  But there hasn&amp;#x27;t been design flaw quite like this one.&lt;p&gt;but none quite like this one.</text></item><item><author>freehunter</author><text>Just an anecdote, but I&amp;#x27;m a traveling consultant for a pretty big tech company, and the manager of the consulting group told us when the 737 Max issue started (but before it was grounded) that we did not have to fly on that plane and if we were put on that plane we could change flights and bill the change fee back to the company without any complaints.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s been no further guidance so far on what we&amp;#x27;ll do when the 737 Max is back in service, but the message was clear: the safety and comfort of the employee is worth a $200 change fee, compared to being forced onto a plane that the employee feels is unsafe. I&amp;#x27;ve never heard that mentioned for any other plane. As much as air travel has sucked this summer with cancelations and delays caused by the grounding of this plane, I don&amp;#x27;t foresee that model having much luck if&amp;#x2F;when it&amp;#x27;s put into full service.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chx</author><text>Especially one that the FAA tried to pooh pooh as long as it could. It was amazing to watch the goodwill and trust accumulated over decades crumble to nothing in a few hours as the European countries one by one banned the airline from their airspace but did not ground them. It was the EASA telling the FAA to do the right thing. They didn&amp;#x27;t and then finally the EASA did ground the plane. I really can&amp;#x27;t remember any other time when the EASA and the FAA disagreed especially this big.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thejournal.ie&amp;#x2F;us-ireland-boeing-4538567-Mar2019&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thejournal.ie&amp;#x2F;us-ireland-boeing-4538567-Mar2019&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Boeing Weighs Cutting or Halting 737 Max Production</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-weighs-cutting-or-halting-737-max-production-11576448990</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pcurve</author><text>There have been plenty of design flaws in commercial jetliners and in most cases, reputation is recovered.  But there hasn&amp;#x27;t been design flaw quite like this one.&lt;p&gt;but none quite like this one.</text></item><item><author>freehunter</author><text>Just an anecdote, but I&amp;#x27;m a traveling consultant for a pretty big tech company, and the manager of the consulting group told us when the 737 Max issue started (but before it was grounded) that we did not have to fly on that plane and if we were put on that plane we could change flights and bill the change fee back to the company without any complaints.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s been no further guidance so far on what we&amp;#x27;ll do when the 737 Max is back in service, but the message was clear: the safety and comfort of the employee is worth a $200 change fee, compared to being forced onto a plane that the employee feels is unsafe. I&amp;#x27;ve never heard that mentioned for any other plane. As much as air travel has sucked this summer with cancelations and delays caused by the grounding of this plane, I don&amp;#x27;t foresee that model having much luck if&amp;#x2F;when it&amp;#x27;s put into full service.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nexuist</author><text>Like a lot of tragedies, it&amp;#x27;s really hard to tell how much the side effects of something like this are attributed to the mistake itself and how much can be explained through modern communication networks (social media) amplifying everything.&lt;p&gt;Is the Boeing mistake &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; that bad, or is it because this is the first such aviation design mistake to happen in our post-2010 everyone-is-online world? Remember that the tails on 737s used to just...fall off back in the &amp;#x27;90s.&lt;p&gt;For the record, I don&amp;#x27;t think the 737 MAX should have ever been cleared to fly with the current version of MCAS. But I can&amp;#x27;t help but believe that there had to be some boneheaded designs in the past that cost hundreds of lives that we just don&amp;#x27;t think about today.&lt;p&gt;In any case, I hope Boeing has learned from this and revised its engineering processes to go back to its previous prestigious roots. I also hope against hope that we will finally see some executives go to prison for approving this.</text></comment>