Yikes!

   

I was living in the Boston area when 911 happened. All the airlines had massive layoffs at that time. One of those laid off aircraft mechanics came to work at my heating and air company. We got to talking about the aircraft. He said that it was like night and day, and that Airbus was a far superior product when it came to maintenance. He said that it was like maintenance people had some input when it came to designing the aircraft. Anyone who turns wrenches for a living knows how rare that is. Airbus had easy access to components, superior layouts, well thought out electrical test points that saved time when troubleshooting, etc., etc. He said that a job that would take one hour on an Airbus could take all day on a Boeing.

I think that Boeing has spent too much time sucking on the government tit. They get these huge endless government contracts and they milk them for all that they are worth. They have forgotten how to compete. They have forgotten how to innovate. They just keep on cranking out the same old same old. This video kept mentioning the 747. Nixon was in the White House when that plane rolled out FFS! Whole series of planes have came and gone since then. Who wants to ride on an aircraft that was made in the 1960's? I don't.

When they do try something new its a freakin disaster like the max. If they do not get their act together soon, Airbus will eat their lunch.

   

Part of their problem is when they merged with McDonnell Douglas. The latter brought their government money wasting, political engineering ethos to Boeing and it shows. Boeing used to make 50% of their planes and parts in house. Now it’s like 10%.

I remember when the 787 was new, there were issues with the batteries catching fire or something like that. That’s because everything gets contracted out like it does with military planes and quality suffers as a result.

Now it seems more than ever, Boeing is making management decisions when it comes to quality and not engineering decisions like they should be and how Airbus is.

   

This is a prime example of why regulatory capture is bad for everyone.

   

There was a time when working for Boeing was as good as it gets. It was one of those dream jobs like IBM, Xerox, GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc., etc. If you got on with Boeing you stayed until you retired or died. Lately Boeing has turned into a bunch of bullies and assholes. There was a time (not too long ago) where Boeing and Washington state were synonymous. You could not have thought about one without thinking about the other. Lately Boeing has been on one long shakedown cruise with Washington state. Boeing is continuously issuing ultimatums and threats toward Washington state. Its do this and do that or we are taking our ball and bat and moving to South Carolina, or somewhere else that they can pay slave wages. That type of shit should not be allowed when it comes to government contracts. All government contracts should include prevailing wage clauses to prevent this rush to the bottom way of doing business. Washington state has always been there for Boeing. The same can no longer be said about Boeing's commitment to Washington state. If Boeing is losing market share to Airbus, than they can look into the mirror when they are looking for someone to blame. Their own shortcomings in R&D, manufacturing processes, outsourcing, etc. are 100% to blame. Do not go around blaming the hard working people of Washington state (who have been kissing your ass from day one) for your own fuck ups. Man up and quit acting like a playground bully.

   

Being a 'bully' is how capitalism works. The owner class is constantly pushing for a monopoly. It is up to the industry and government to regulate so that does not happen otherwise, once regulatory capture happens, corruption inevitably ends up eating itself and people die as a result.

Boeing isn't the problem here, it's Washington trusting too much in industry experts who have a vested interest in the bottom line and not in the public trust. That trust once lost will take forever to rebuild.

   

Easier and more effective maintenance on European built items is a relatively new thing of the last thirty or so years. They've had a long history of their own of making things far too difficult to maintain/repair. Go back to World War Two and you'd have British/French tanks that no one can figure out today how they got approved for manufacture because they were so worthless at just about all the tasks they were expected to perform. And the vaunted German panzerkorps was just as bad - the big guns and expert marksmanship hid the reality that the damn things would break down every 50 km and that a mechanic couldn't even use the same tools on different models because of the too-many-chiefs sort of input that went into engineering them.

American manufacturing was once superior. I have no doubt though that today it isn't. And the reason for that is no more plain that the runaway corporate/executive greed that eventually gets around to ruining every American company. It's a near-impossible thing to reverse too because the ones who wrecked everything are too rich and too well entrenched in their positions of power to ever be dislodged.