Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by nimbius 901 days ago
not much choice. Boeing is practically the only US manufacturer of widebody passenger jets and enjoys a privileged position as such. there is literally no other American competition for passenger air.

Alternatives include the Chinese Comac 929, Sukhoi SSJ100, or A320 from Airbus. the first two are non-starters as most north american politicians are furiously opposed to the idea of carriers so much as looking at chinese or russian passenger jets. the A320 on the other hand, while arguably a better widebody jet than anything Boeing has ever produced, has the same political hand-wringing and strong arming from lobbyists and airline executives alike. American Airlines replaced a chunk of their fleet with the A320 because the Dreamliner was literally killing about as many people as it managed to transport when it wasnt down for loose bolts or reboots due to battery issues.

Given enough time and without meaningful reform and intervention by Washington, Boeing will literally hand the win over to these 3 other competitors just like AT&T handed over 5G to Huawei. Ironic considering Airbus was originally a Boeing joint venture.

7 comments

Not that I have much respect for modern Boeing, but quoting Wikipedia re Dreamliner:

“The Boeing 787 has been involved in seven accidents and incidents as of November 2023, with zero fatalities and no hull losses.”

Airbus has never been a Boeing joint venture. It is a politically desired united European aircraft company (doesn't sound good so far?) that somehow took off (heh).

Maybe it worked because the predecessor companies' main problem was "just" scale - they made some decent planes already.

Why do people with no insight write walls of text on things they don't understand?
Ideologies are a tool to explain the world. And if you do not use the scientific brain, the energy wise cheap heuristics take over.

All is just caused by one group, one thing, one enemy. The analytical capabilities of a mouse seeing cats in every shadow.

Please present evidence or any other narrative?
It’s rather ironic that by claiming their comment lacks credibility without including any counterpoints it makes your comment itself lack credibility too.
He keeps using "widebody" for narrow body planes. He lies about Boeing having anything to do with Airbus' foundation.

It's like an LLM hallucinating.

ignoring various questionable details here, the one main point is correct: Boeing and Airbus are strategic industrial assets of USA vs EU and have deep implications for strategic security for both US and EU and their clients. For example, servicing these machines provides access to sensitive infrastructure all over the planet to these two companies’ employees & “certified” 3rd party consultants. If you are sitting say in UAE, buying Boeing vs AirBus is a political decision as well as a practical decision.
> American Airlines replaced a chunk of their fleet with the A320 because the Dreamliner was literally killing about as many people as it managed to transport when it wasnt down for loose bolts or reboots due to battery issues.

From Wikipedia:

> The Boeing 787 has been involved in seven accidents and incidents as of November 2023, with zero fatalities and no hull losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Accident...

Was this screed written by an AI?
If it was written by AI it would be higher quality.
This makes no sense. The Comac 929 is a widebody that is still in the prototype stage, the SSJ100 is a regional jet that competes with the A220 or Embraer (a market where Boeing doesn’t even have a product), and the A320 is not a widebody. No airline replaces Dreamliners with A320s.