Are the airlines still going to want the planes? The flying public is skeptical of flying on that model plane. Some will refuse to take a flight on it, even if all of the right steps are taken to correct the issue.

In hindsight they probably would have been better off developing a completely new plane to replace the 737,…
I don’t think this is a valid conclusion at this point in time, the issue was their execution. If they had managed the process better and created an MCAS system that was both more reliable and/or visible to pilots (which would have required some training) then there probably wouldn’t be a controversy right now.

Holy fuck, have you even been to Chicago? What about Chicago weather would make it preferable to Seattle? I mean, in Chicago, people die in the spring when big chunks of ice fall from the tops of skyscrapers.
I assumed he/she was joking because neither place is the top of the charts for weather.
Seattle; 364 days of cloudy and slight precipitation, 1 day of pure blue sky (but still only 64 degrees)
Chicago: 6 months of polar vortex and then 6 months of easy-bake-oven - with one day of nice 72 degree weather

Re: The Boeing HQ move. The new boss was from Chicago. Wanted to continue to live there. So they invented an excuse: Chicago is more centrally located to clients. Right. Did they look at a globe?
So a ton of management had to move to Chicago or quit. I assume that not all the experienced people moved. That had to hurt to corporate memory and the culture.
One of the all time great stupid moves in US corporate history.
None of the speculations are true. Boeing wanted to show the world that they are a worldwide company. In reality, very little actually moved from Seattle to Chicago. They incorporated some of their various entities into a single location. Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the branch that build airplanes, is still headquartered in Seattle. Boeing Defense and Space is headquartered in St. Louis. Boeing Helicopters is in Philadelphia. If I have to call HR, i call someone in Florida. I now have almost 40 years at Boeing, to everyone here in Pugetropolis, it’s still a Seattle company.

I don’t think this is a valid conclusion at this point in time, the issue was their execution. If they had managed the process better and created an MCAS system that was both more reliable and/or visible to pilots (which would have required some training) then there probably wouldn’t be a controversy right now.
It is, in my opinion a valid conclusion, but they also needed, in hindsight, to have started work on it years in the past. At the time that the MAX was being developed, Airbus was taking orders for the Neo, which used new fuel-saving engines. Boeing did not have a plane to compete with it. A brand new plane takes much longer to develop than an update to a current model, and Boeing customers were demanding new fuel efficient planes. They were willing to order planes from Airbus if Boeing couldn’t deliver. One way Boeing could compete was to guarantee that existing 737 pilots would not have to undergo costly training if the airlines bought the Boeing 737 update, the MAX.
That locked Boeing into some impossible constraints. Update the existing 737 to use the larger fuel efficient engines, but make no changes that would require expensive simulator training. If they could not deliver on all of those criteria, their customers said they would go with Airbus.
As it turns out, they should have either taken the short term hit, and worked to develop a new plane, or they should have offered to pay for any required training in order for airlines to stay with them. (They came close to doing this anyway with Southwest – it’s going to get a $1 million per plane rebate because simulator training is going to be required for pilots to fly the MAX when it returns to service.) It would be less than they wound up losing, and, you know, people would not have died.
I also agree that they have a deeply dysfunctional corporate culture now. How they can recover from that, I’m not sure. Though it does look like they are currently rooting out every glitch in the MAX they can find, and publicly announcing them. That may be a decent sign, but from what has come out about the dreamliner production lines, shoddy work, using defective parts, managers overruling quality control personnel, etc., they have a long way to go.
Most people don’t know the HQ is in Chicago or care where the HQ is. It only matters if you are a customer of Boeing.

Are the airlines still going to want the planes? The flying public is skeptical of flying on that model plane. Some will refuse to take a flight on it, even if all of the right steps are taken to correct the issue.
I’m not sure if they have a choice. American and Southwest, the two airlines with the most Maxes on order, were counting on those planes to replace their old MD-80s and 737-300s respectively, both of which were retried recently. Without the Maxes they’ve been forced to cancel routes that they were were planning on flying, because they don’t have enough planes. Airbus is sold out of NEOs for years, and neither airline can afford to wait that long for new planes (and Southwest buying Airbus would be a HUGE deal).
And I wonder what percentage of the flying public actually is aware of what kind of plane they’re on in the first place. I’m sure airlines will downplay the “Max” part of the name and will just label them “737-8” or whatever. How many people are knowledgeable enough about planes to know that that’s a Max?
they should change the name to 737 - Super Safe

Are the airlines still going to want the planes? The flying public is skeptical of flying on that model plane. Some will refuse to take a flight on it, even if all of the right steps are taken to correct the issue.
IAG ordered (well, LoI), 200 of them post-grounding.

I wonder what percentage of the flying public actually is aware of what kind of plane they’re on in the first place…
I will know, and I won’t ride the bug infested corporate profit-mobiles.
i very much doubt that i am alone.
A new plane. Built by engineers, not bean counters, from the ground up.is the solution here. Boeing can take that or leave it; but So Can I.
see next post - received error posting but it had actually posted

As it turns out, they should have either taken the short term hit, and worked to develop a new plane, or they should have offered to pay for any required training in order for airlines to stay with them.
Exactly, they could have handled the required training in some satisfactory manner to the airlines and they would have been ok, they did not need to build a brand new plane to solve the problem.
If they had built a new plane:
1 - Training would not only still be an issue, it would almost certainly be a bigger issue
2 - Larger up front cost and significant delay to get to market
If they had taken the short term hit and built a new plane, it’s possible that in the future that would turn out to be a better long term decision, but at this point in time I don’t think there is enough information to know that.
I also question whether the flying public will want to get on the MAX after this debacle. Many won’t know or care, but there might be a small percentage that will avoid it, enough to hit the airlines bottom line.

The other commercial crew capsule exploded during testing. I don’t think the general public realizes how devastating that was. Whereas the Boeing capsule’s failure would not have resulted in loss of life.
That’s not really fair. That other capsule had already completed its unmanned test launch, successfully docked with the ISS and returned to Earth safely. Had any astronauts been on board, they would have been fine. The explosion happened later during a ground test.

I also question whether the flying public will want to get on the MAX after this debacle. Many won’t know or care, but there might be a small percentage that will avoid it, enough to hit the airlines bottom line.
They’ll rename it, at least as it appears to the public (on travel websites and the plane). Here’s a Forbes article showing they’re already removing the “Max” lettering from the planes.

They’ll rename it, at least as it appears to the public (on travel websites and the plane). Here’s a Forbes article showing they’re already removing the “Max” lettering from the planes.
I guess the rebranding makes business sense but aircraft markings are pretty much irrelevant IMO. Nobody will refuse to board a certified MAX at the door. That’s one in ten million passengers.
Either they will research the make before booking or they will board and choose another flight next time if possible, one that doesn’t fly the MAX.
I don’t know if it will happen or not in significant numbers, but for the first time it is a realistic prospect.
I think a better question would be how much more are you willing to pay to avoid the MAX? What if the cheapest flight to your destination is on a MAX, and the cheapest one that isn’t a MAX costs $100 more? Would you pay that? How about $200 more, or $500 more?
That’s a good question indeed. But if it gets to that point, say $100 dollars is the average line in the sand, I suspect the airlines flying the MAX would already be hurting.
I don’t know the US market well enough to comment beyond that but to travel inside Europe I think the cost/inconvenience to avoid the MAX is marginal.
way back in the 80s when people died from poison in Tylenol they lost market share but I think it all came back. It helped that all OTC drugs were put in sealed bottles and boxes after those deaths. Nobody was ever charged with the crime.

I don’t know the US market well enough to comment beyond that but to travel inside Europe I think the cost/inconvenience to avoid the MAX is marginal.
According to the Forbes article pullin posted, if you’re flying Ryanair you probably won’t know whether or not you’ll be getting a MAX when you book, as they don’t allocate specific planes to routes until the night before.
Here in the US, Southwest is both the largest airline domestically, and the largest operator of MAX (and the largest operator of 737s in general, for that matter). Many fliers here are very loyal to Southwest due to their generally good customer service and policy of not charging extra for checked bags and ticket changes, even if their fares aren’t necessarily the cheapest anymore. It will be interesting to see if those fliers change their loyalty in order to avoid the MAX.
Come to think of it, as the world’s largest 737 operator, Southwest has a lot of influence at Boeing. I’m almost certain they were the ones demanding that they not have to retrain their pilots (or at least demanded it the loudest) in the first place.

way back in the 80s when people died from poison in Tylenol they lost market share but I think it all came back. It helped that all OTC drugs were put in sealed bottles and boxes after those deaths. Nobody was ever charged with the crime.
Or to compare it to another airplane, the DC-10 was grounded in 1979 after the horrific American Airlines crash at O’Hare, plus a string of crashes before that due to the cargo door blowing off inflight. I wasn’t alive then, but reportedly many people back then said they’d never fly on a DC-10, too. But when it returned to service most people did anyway.