Originally Posted by
vikingivesterled
Are there not 3 different versions of the Max (8, 9 and the Ryanair 10) with different cabin lengths and differences in the undercarriage, painted in different colours and with different seat configurations, seat types, loo placements and air stairs. A bit of a job making them all into Ryanair planes. And with the addition of the NG Ryanair would operate planes with 4 different seat capacities messing up their all planes can fly all routes and all loads because they are all the same and we only assign tail numbers the night before strategy.
There are other airlines commited to Boeing that will still need new planes in a couple of years. Planes don't stop ageing just because they don't fly, rather the opposite. And what would Boeing make in the meantime until they can come up with a new bread and butter plane. They can't live on the very low number of widebodies there is a market for. And after a couple of years all the skilled furloughed staff will have found other jobs, or retired, and the factories gone into disarray.
There are five versions of the B737MAX:
- B737-7: hardly any ordered, may sink without trace in the marketplace, it's a shortened -8
- B737-8: the bread-and-butter main big-selling model, fairly competitive against the A320neo
- B737-8200: the "Ryanair special", a -8 with modified seating and exit arrangements so it can fly with 200 (well actually 199) passengers. Not yet certificated.
- B737-9: a bit longer than the -8 and completely uncompetitive against the A321neo/XL/XLR, many orders swapped for the -10 once that was announced
- B737-10: a bit longer again and with new main gear to stop the tail scraping on rotation, not quite so uncompetitive against the A321neo/XL/XLR. Not yet certificated.
It would be difficult to change a -8 to a Ryanair -8200 as there are extra emergency exits on the -8200, so I doubt that the 'car park' -8s could practicably be converted to -8200s for delivery to Ryanair.