"Children of the Magenta Line".
This phrase was by American Airlines pilot Warren Van der Burgh...
Latest on the issue...seems as though in the ITC complaint against Bombardier, B provided some interesting details on the MAX 8...
Before last month’s crash of a flight that began in Ethiopia, Boeing Co. said in a legal document that large, upgraded 737s “cannot be used at what are referred to as ‘high/hot’ airports."
At an elevation of 7,657 feet -- or more than a mile high -- Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport falls into that category. High elevations require longer runways and faster speeds for takeoff. The Ethiopian airport’s altitude hasn’t been cited as a factor in the downing of Flight 302 and likely didn’t cause the crash. But it could have exacerbated the situation because an airplane’s performance degrades at higher altitudes, said a 737 pilot who flies into high-elevation airports such as Denver and agreed to speak on background since he’s not authorized to talk with the media.
Boeing cited the performance of the 737 Max 8 in a casebrought before the U.S. International Trade Commission in 2017. Boeing charged that unfair competition from Bombardier -- which beat out Boeing for a large order from Delta Air Lines -- threatened its 737-700 and Max 7, the smallest of its upgraded single-aisle jets. By pointing out the limitations of the Max 8, the planemaker sought to preserve market share for the 700 and Max 7.
Boeing stated in a brief filed in the trade case that the “737 Max 7 has greater performance capabilities at challenging airports. In particular, the 737 Max 7 can serve certain ‘high/hot’ airports and has a greater range operating out of constrained airfields.” The brief then cites a number of such airports -- the names of which are redacted -- that the Max 7 can fly into that “the 8, 9 and 10 cannot."
“Larger 737 variants cannot be used at what are referred to has ‘high/hot’ airports,” the brief stated. Certain U.S. airports are unsuitable for the Max 8 “due to a combination of short runway lengths, elevation, temperature, humidity and other environmental conditions."
Documents in the trade case referred to at least 16 U.S. airports considered “high and hot” and therefore unsuitable for the Max 8, though the names of those facilities weren’t made public. Asked during a trade commission hearing to specify which airports, an expert witness for Boeing replied that “sometimes Denver would qualify as that.” The expert, Jerry Nickelsburg, an adjunct economics professor at UCLA, added that “Mexico City certainly qualifies as that.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...rtain-airports