What the Boeing crisis means for air passengers

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"One of the world's largest Boeing customers, the European low-cost airline Ryanair, is also clear. In the 2024 annual report, the delivery difficulties are mentioned in the very first sentence - as a central growth problem. Due to around 20 missing aircraft for the peak summer vacation period, the passenger target had to be significantly reduced - by five million passengers for the 2025 financial year. Ryanair flies almost exclusively with Boeing and is therefore particularly dependent on the company.

Switching from Boeing to Airbus is not so easy for airlines, says aviation expert Ziegler. “Airbus' order books are full for years to come.” And even if that were not the case: Anyone switching from one aircraft manufacturer to another would also have to retrain pilots and cabin crew accordingly, says the business economist. That is also expensive and time-consuming.

In response to an inquiry from tagesschau.de, a Boeing spokesperson said of the current delivery problems: “Our priority remains to ensure stability in our supply chain prior to final assembly. In light of the current strike, we are working to deliver aircraft that were already certified by the FAA at the time of the strike.” The FAA is the aviation authority in the United States.

Boeing has been in the worst crisis in its history since 2018. Back then, two 737 Max aircraft crashed within a few months of each other. In October 2018, a medium-haul jet of the series crashed in Indonesia and shortly afterwards in March 2019, a plane of the same type crashed in Ethiopia. 346 people lost their lives.

After the two fatal crashes, the model had to remain on the ground for more than 20 months from March 2019. The aircraft was only gradually recertified after technical improvements were made. The disaster cost the manufacturer billions. There is now a new top management team. The defense business is also in trouble; the division has lost billions in the past two years. The company is also struggling with chronic delivery delays and a mountain of debt."

You may or may not know that the union has been on strike against Boeing for the last two weeks. This further slow down delivery if the strike becomes prolonged.

Boeing is a major employer in my community. Issues there impact many people in their day to day lives as well.

At this point Boeing's problems are worse than airbus, which has its own supply chain issues and, as I recall, a particular engine has proved to be a stumbling block to delivery of more aircraft.
Covid made a mess of the supply chain which is still struggling to get humming again.

Demand for travel came back with a vengeance and the aircraft manufacturers have not been able catch up with the demand from the airlines for more planes.

In the long run things will get back to normal, but in the short term a lot of 'make do' solutions will need to be employed.

You may or may not know that the union has been on strike against Boeing for the last two weeks. This further slow down delivery if the strike becomes prolonged.

And given the news report I saw that the union isn't even going to vote on a proposal that would raise the average wage from $75k per year to $111k per year over 4 years because it is 'inadequate' points to a longer, not shorter strike and an even greater disruption in deliveries.

In other industries typically large companies in electonics go with a multi-vendor-strategy. Of youre this causes additional costs but is somehow a rescue if one vendor comes up wuth major issues.

In Toulouse, where the final fine-tuning of the aircraft is carried out before they fly out all over the world, the aircraft manufacturer is significantly expanding its delivery center. By increasing capacity from four to twelve handovers per day, Airbus is underlining its ambition to meet growing demand and at the same time consolidate its leading position in the aviation industry.

But success comes at a price: Demand for the A320, Airbus' flagship model, is so high that new orders cannot be met until the next decade. A complex supplier network of almost 3,000 companies must be synchronized in order to meet production requirements - a logistical and personnel challenge.

What will be the consequences for travellers:

• Less capacity and / or connection offerings?
• Flying in older machines?
• Climbing flight prices for re-financing jets due to less competition on the aircraft market?
• Market entry or growth of new / small players, e. g. from Asia?
• ...

There is a very interesting book titled Flying Blind that was written after the 737 Max9 disgrace and it pretty well details how Boeing got into the mess it is in now. Basically Boeing, the manufacturer of a highly technical product with no room for error, fell int the hands of the bean counters and the inevitable happened ... the product turned to crap.

I'll happily.y fly on a 747 or first generation 777, they were designed and built when Bung was a considered to be a global standard of excellence.

I worked for Boeing Engineering just out of school back before the 777.

"...fell int the hands of the bean counters and the inevitable happened ... the product turned to crap."

I certainly agree. But it sure did "maximize shareholder value", at least for a stretch. Now the bill(s) are coming due. The union used to have a pension, they don't now. Lots of things.

What will be the consequences for travellers...

For intra-European travel, possibly more or extended bans for short-haul flights in favor of trains, such as the edict in France.

Delaying retirement of airframes slated for such goes a long way toward fixing the problem. Lufthansa will have to stick with 747s with crusty old business class sections for longer than it intended. Impact for travelers is enduring crusty old planes instead of sleek new planes for a few years.

I've read on another thread that there are a number of Boeing 787s completed and stored waiting for seats. Note Boeing is not the seat manufacturer. Meanwhile United now has four of its new Airbus A321neos sitting on the ground, reportedly awaiting resolution of problems with the radios. There are currently eight more A321neos at Airbus plants in Hamburg, Toulouse, and Mobile, AL destined for United that are in 'flight test' but not actually doing any test flights. The Pratt-Whitney engines on those A321neos are also having reliability issues.

Re: the ageing 747s, while there are hard limits an aircraft is allowed for take-off/landing cycles and hours in operation, usually airline like to retire the aircraft sooner as maintenance becomes increasingly more expensive.

While Boeing has certainly dug itself a pretty big hole, not every problem out there is Boeing's fault.

There are certainly many problems with supply chains for many companies, including Boeing. But those are tiny compared to the giant mess that Boeing has put itself in.

Here is a pretty good summary (although not complete) of how Boeing ended up in this situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc

We were discussing an article that talked about the blindness of Business people that believe it doesn't matter about the industry, sound Business Principles can manage anything. I mentioned that if you wanted an example you only had to look at Boeing. Another finally responded that he was pissed (at my remark) at first since the current President had come up through Engineering then he remembered that he had taken over a few years ago from the previous President that had been in there for quite a while and had launched the previous programs. A graduate of that McKinley(sp?) management firm that we were discussing as a prime example of that philosophy.

The company's name is McKinsey, mainly extremely expensive strategy consulting without a certain belief. Example: for decades they push clients around between cantralisation and decentralisation. Their consulting approach is very much based on number crunching; therefore their often very young staff is often from nature science studies without any education on business or management. Hardcore alumni network which pushes former colleagues into next open positions. In former times their yellow papers were famous: they sent scribbles of their work to India in the evening and got a full presentation out of a basic chart set back the next morning for breakfast - funny when there were remarks such as "can't read this".

Funny traveler side story: in earlier times also their newbies in Germany were flying business - while the mid management of their clients were flying eco on domestic flights.

"The company's name is McKinsey..."

That's the one.

I would say that the closest the Business is to pure Logistics then that is more likely to work. And firms, especially very large ones, are dominated by Logistics. But in others, the Logistics is there to support a more important effort. Which pure Logistics doesn't have much to say about.