Originally Posted by
ATC Watcher
Whow indeed .. just wondering if the consequences of the current lack of electronic semi-conductors causing havoc in the car manufacturing industry ( up to 4 years waiting time if you order specific models today) and 6-8 months delays on previously ordered cars, is entering aircraft manufacturers.
Possible but not likely. Due to the massive certification costs of new parts (the regulators have issued guidance that changing logic devices such as CPU or ASIC is a major change), and since aircraft avionics rarely use the latest state of the art components (since it costs so much to certify a change), the suppliers tend to stockpile logic devices.
Overall, regardless of how difficult a customer Qatar might be, it's pretty hard to see this as other than a win for Boeing.
It reminds me a bit of something that happened back in the 1990s. Boeing did a deal with (IIRC) Singapore for a bunch of 777s, agreeing to take used A340s as trade-in. Airbus came out and said they would refuse product support to Airbus aircraft that had been purchased through Boeing. Boeing responding by issuing a presser that Boeing would always continue to support any Boeing aircraft, regardless of who you bought it from. This made Airbus look so bad they quickly backed down
