Originally Posted by
petit plateau
"Now some airline companies are trying to engage beyond business as usual. It's a start at least. A good number here (and many uninterested in benefits of discussions on the forum) already have consigned Boeing to the trash bin of corporate history. We won't resolve this on any thread, though the discontent of airline companies arising at this time might, in turn, trigger an interesting question. Those who attack airline deregulation all the way back to Prof. Alfred Kahn, do they now claim that airline company detachment from the Boeing 737 MAX crisis until now is yet another symptom of the ill-advised concept and/or execution of deregulation? It's relevant to persistent calls to re-regulate."
Er, hang on a moment. The 737-MAX exists precisely because of airline involvement, bluntly stated as "must be cheap enough to compete with new Airbus offering" and "must be utterly pilot compatible with 737 with no material pilot retraining". At that point, whether they realised it or not, the airlines were dictating the engineering solution and the operational outcome.
Point taken, but the contention is that wanting to meet with the Board in light of current missteps and the multiple federal engagements is a different level of involvement. The pressures upon Boeing in the iteration of the MAX - in retrospect - were neither irrestible nor impossible for Boeing to deflect and placate or co-opt. After all, many a poster and other commentator has decried the bean-counter and stock buy-back C-suite and Board mentality - which if it had not existed then the airline pressures would not have been acceded to. So yes, with the corrupt (I use that term loosely) management and Board mindset, the airline pressures had their way, but they were consistent with the wrong mindset at Boeing at that time. Now, if press reports are to be believed, the airline company view (for some, at least) has yielded to realities. Many posters and other commentators believe Boeing not only hasn't yielded to reality but in fact is doomed in any event.
In other words, 737 MAX design and certification decisions were made in part due to certain airline pressures but those pressures matched up with the management and Board departures from engineering preeminence, without which the whole sad saga could not have evolved. So not "dictated" by the airline companies. And beyond that, the reported overtures to the Board are at a higher level of engagement and amidst a profound corporate and sector crisis.