[mym1990]

I would lean towards an anti-Boeing hype cycle with some confluence of a series of unfortunate events. This is not to say that the QA issues aren't leading to something catastrophic, but on the whole I don't think people quite comprehend the number of flights that take off and land in a day, and how few fatalities and injuries result as of these trips relative to the passenger load.

[chmod775]

The problem isn't that "accidents happen", the problem is that airplane safety culture isn't meeting people's expectations anymore. Two planes crashing for the exact same preventable reason mere months apart just does not compute. A single crash would've been quickly forgotten. But two crashes and a long chain of incidents all while the planes were allowed to stay in the air is going to change people's perceptions.

The fuckups being directly attributable to inept leadership, bad policy, and a focus shift away from building planes does not help, especially since the same incompetent clowns are still in charge at Boeing. One of the first remedies should've been getting rid of the businesses school types that have crept in and making sure decision making is again done by engineers. Instead, they blamed the 737 MAX's issues on engineers in the corporate ladder, such as then CEO Dennis Muilenburg, replacing them with lesser-qualified people. Even though the plane was developed during his predecessor's term, who definitely wasn't an engineer and brought most of the relevant organizational issues about! Now you can blame him for not substantially reversing the course set by his predecessor, but the answer definitely isn't to have Boeing be run by yet another non-engineer.

Boeing's current leadership does not have the trust of the public or that of the engineers working under them. After all of this, they won't ever.

[mym1990]

Totally agree, but the truth is that it is hard to say that the public has lost trust in Boeing when more people than ever are in the air. The peanut gallery is on to something, and Boeing is losing orders, but it doesn't seem to be enough to actually change anything.

[dheera]

> it is hard to say that the public has lost trust in Boeing

I've temporarily lost trust in them until they get their shit together. Airplanes are only safe because manufacturing and maintainence has been done diligently over the past couple decades and with sufficient attention to prevention of known hazards. As soon as that diligence disappears, airplanes can become unsafe, very quickly. If an accident could have been prevented by diligence, I lose trust.

I've been flying but avoiding Boeing aircraft in the past few months, until we get to the bottom of this. Many of my friends are doing the same.

I've also had multiple pilots explicitly announce that "this is not a 737 Max" or something to that effect.

[kelnos]

"Lost trust" is a complicated matter. I think I have list a great deal of trust in Boeing, and try to avoid 737 max and 787 planes when I fly, but if flights with those planesc are the only reasonable choices, I'll still go. The probability of injury or death is still fantastically low. Maybe my views on that will change over time. We'll see.

The bottom line is that I have places to go, and if my risk tolerance was zero, that would be a very difficult way to live my life.

[xcv123]

> inept leadership

Their leadership are worse than "inept" or "incompetent". Actively evil psychopaths running the show.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...

[jajko]

Yet competition can and does better, much better re safety currently. Any issue of Airbus would get at least same press coverage, in US even more since media are usually not impartial.

Are we already into some boeing whitewashing cycle too?

[mym1990]

A lot of safety related improvements(at least in the US) are also due to the FAA and generally the open process of anonymously reporting issues on flights. Each crash has also been meticulously investigated and vast improvements were put in place. The reality is that the most dangerous times on a flight are take off and landing, which is also where human judgement and process plays a large part.

As far as breaking out of a duopoly, I don't know the path for that, as the barrier to entry to building commercial planes is sky high, but I do think one more player would be a net benefit.

[chmod775]

> As far as breaking out of a duopoly, I don't know the path for that

I'm sure China does. Right now they're the only bloc of sufficient size, economy, and most importantly motivation, to pull it off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919

Do note that some systems in that aircraft are still manufactured by European and American companies or are jointly made.

[drstewart]

>Yet competition can and does better, much better re safety currently.

Oh wow I had no idea. Can you compare hull losses / fatalities of the 787 to the A350?

[sofixa]

It's not a fair comparison since the A350 is newer, has less planes in operation and less flight cycles. It does have 1 hull loss with 0 fatalities due to human error either in the ATC or another plane that resulted in a crash - nothing to do with the A350 or its crew in any way outside of its and their good management of the crash (the plane composite materials delayed the fire long enough for the crew to be able to perform a perfect evacuation and save everyone).

[__d]

They're too young for that, I think?