Still Can't Make Planes

Boeing again, and it appears that, despite months of effort the timelines for certifying the latest 737 models have slipped again.

This is what happens when you let finance types run things:

FAA approval of the last two Boeing 737 MAX variants is “progressing,” a top Boeing official said, but ongoing challenges related to the agency’s more stringent approach to certification continue to lengthen the timelines.

“We do expect certification and delivery this year” of the 737-7, Boeing CFO Brian West said at a Bank of America investor event March 22. “We are working very, very closely with Southwest to make sure that we could help them with their fleet management and how that’s all going to play out for the course of this year. So, no specifics, but it’s progressing.”

Southwest, the largest 737-7 customer with 186 on order, once expected deliveries to start in early 2022. But the prolonged certification process has forced it to shift gears, removing the 737-7 from its 2023 network plan and keeping some older 737-700s once tagged for retirement in the process.

………

Boeing, which steers clear of predicting when FAA approvals for any of its projects will come, wrapped up 737-7 certification flight testing in late 2021. The remaining issues focus on validating pilot-reaction assumptions Boeing has made as part of system safety assessments (SSAs), industry sources with knowledge of the situation told Aviation Week. Boeing has been working on the SSAs for months, in some cases following FAA’s direction to provide more information or revisions.

“They have to validate their assumptions about pilot responses,” one source with certification experience told Aviation Week, pointing to internal shortcomings as part of Boeing’s issues. “When they were developing the 777 [in the early 1990s], they were the gold standard. You asked for documentation of anything, and they had it for you in a heartbeat. Everything was organized and well documented. That’s no longer true, and that’s part of why they’re struggling right now.”

This is what happened when the Clinton administration strong-armed Boeing into buying McDonnel Douglas.  The McDonnell Mafia took over, and their attitude has always been, "Aircraft, schmaircraft, we have stock buybacks to make."

If aliens were to abduct the entirety of the Harvard Business School, the world would be a better place.