UK CAA ban B737 MAX8 operations in UK

[Plane mad 134]

It seems like there could be major knock on effects for all airlines.

[cheesebag]

Read the last few pages on the TUI thread

[rog747]

Its still winter season so TUI should be able to cover their own Ops - but if the MAX no fly ban goes on for ages then yes their S19 season will be a trial for TOM/BY and their Benelux counterparts to cover...
Maybe they are de-mothballing any 757's they have just sent back as we speak.(and keeping the 767's)

As for DY/D8/DI they have a much bigger MAX fleet based in the UK and a semi long haul operation to cover...plus also fly for TUI Hols.

Enter Air will not be able to fly S19 for Sunvil Holidays own Greece and Greek Islands charter series with any of their MAX fleet if the ban goes on into the season.

All to/from UK such as from TK RAM LOT AC WJA all will have to be covered by other equipment.

[PAXboy]

Whether or not this was justified no longer matters. The dominoes are falling and the CAA knew they would be on a hiding to nothing if they did not.

[davidjohnson6]

Are there going to be any kind of oddball charters in the UK to cover for the grounded aircraft ? Wamos 747 or HiFly A380 from Gatwick to Malaga or similiar ?

[2Para]

Norwegian could be in difficulties wilth aircraft dept uk,eire with B737.8 series into that fluctuating jetstrem over the next week or so.......

[chaps1954]

Weekend will be the test when the highest usage is, last weekend TUI had 5 B737MAX airborne from Manchester so we shall have to wait and see
but I guess a shortage of spare airframes around will cause some fun

[mik3bravo]

Sky News: Donald Trump orders Boeing 737 MAX 8s to be grounded after Ethiopia crash

http://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-orders-boeing-737-max-8s-to-be-grounded-after-ethiopia-crash-11664428

[daz211]

Sky News: Donald Trump orders Boeing 737 MAX 8s to be grounded after Ethiopia crash

http://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-orders-boeing-737-max-8s-to-be-grounded-after-ethiopia-crash-11664428

At least two US flights have reported that an automated system seemed to cause their Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes to tilt down suddenly.

In reports filed last year in a database compiled by NASA, the pilots said that soon after engaging the autopilot on their planes, the nose tilted down sharply.

In both cases they recovered quickly after disconnecting the autopilot.

[mik3bravo]

As a product, the Max is a bit like how MS shove out new releases of Windows, half baked, half assed finished. Max isn't a finished stable, safe product Loss of life outcomes. I can tell you I won't step foot on board or put any family at risk by putting them on board this type. Id be happy walking away from a flight ticket if I learned it was a Max. No way will I fly on that airframe.

[racedo]

Norwegian happy as Boeing will be paying them a huge amount of cash plus everybody else who has one.

Could see Boeing going into Chapter 11 if this continues way more than 3 months as every other plane will also be looked at in detail.

Real danger is that people stop flying because they worried about aircraft. Ultimately people get on an aluminimium tube because they believe they will get out the other end, reduce that a tiny bit and it will kill confidence.

Can see Ryanair looking at the summer schedule in detail now and snapping up some leases to cover.

[davidjohnson6]

Racedo - are you being tongue-in-cheek or serious ? Difficult to tell which it is !

[racedo]

Racedo - are you being tongue-in-cheek or serious ? Difficult to tell which it is !

Being serious as Boeing will have to rework every single plane and everything will need recertifying so it could be 6-9 months. In addition nobody will be taking deliveries of them either so your production schedule is shot for 2 years. Boeing will be lucky if cost is under $2 billion because of delays, rework and compensation. Every single plane will need this and they haven't even started yet hence my timetable may be too short. Just updating a piece of software like a laptop will not bring confidence back.

Norwegian struggling for cash and now Boeing will be giving them lots of it, figure it will be a big number per aircraft per day and they have 18 of them plus Norwegian will be claiming liquidated damages for the damage to its reputation, having to reschedule aircraft and being unable to expand as planned.

270 odd planes and a million a month in lost revenue per plane at a minimum in damages soon adds up.

Intel 20 odd years ago had a problem with a chip, it really only affected high level mathematical calculations which they reckoned less that 0.1% of 1% of users would be affected. It almost brought the company down because people wanted the chip replaced even though it had no impact.

[davidjohnson6]

Boeing have a market cap of over $200bn
That tells me investors don't see Boeing going into Chapter 11 any time soon.
Assuming the issue affects just the 737 Max aircraft, Boeing will not struggle to borrow cash at a non-punitive rate from mainstream banks if existing cash reserves prove insufficient. As an absolute last resort, Washington DC will not allow one of America's largest exporters and 2nd biggest defence contractor to go bust over a few hundred 737s

[Max Tow]

Agree, but there may well be a further complication if even a small proportion of the travelling public can't or won't distinguish between the 737 Max and the thousands of others without the particular model suffix. Very difficult to predict or quantify but it's difficult to believe that there won't be some collateral damage to the 737 brand. I imagine the PR and Commercial departments of "old" model 737s will be giving this some thought and will be looking for any signs of avoidance.

[rog747]

Agree, but there may well be a further complication if even a small proportion of the travelling public can't or won't distinguish between the 737 Max and the thousands of others without the particular model suffix. Very difficult to predict or quantify but it's difficult to believe that there won't be some collateral damage to the 737 brand. I imagine the PR and Commercial departments of "old" model 737s will be giving this some thought and will be looking for any signs of avoidance.

Judging by the near riot on TUI's Facebook and Twitter accounts with their 1000's of their customers demanding TUI ground the MAX, or book them on another type, I reckon this was some way towards the CAA biting the bullet and making the case for the UK to ground the MAX sooner than later.
I think we can give some credence to TUI's customers that they can be well informed as to what aircraft they were going on their holidays with.

I think Jet2 will be sitting there thinking phew! - We don't have this mess to deal with...
Had Monarch survived and had their 737 MAX fleet in operations then this would have been a major blow for them.

Titan will be uber busy...

The S19 package holiday season is around a month away starting up, and whilst I reckon TUI UK can juggle their existing fleet around to cover their 6 MAX groundings (TUI UK have a 7th due to come) the TUI Group in the EU maybe not so easy to cover.

TUI UK have leased a load of 737-800's to Sunwing (who in Canada have had to ground their own MAX fleet) - I doubt TUI will be able to get those 738's back easily - TUI may get recently stored 757's RTS and keep the 767's longer?

Combine with the loss of Small Planet and Germania there are a lot of holiday flights to cover this coming season.

[sinbad73]

Judging by the near riot on TUI's Facebook and Twitter accounts with their 1000's of their customers demanding TUI ground the MAX, or book them on another type, I reckon this was some way towards the CAA biting the bullet and making the case for the UK to ground the MAX sooner than later.
I think we can give some credence to TUI's customers that they can be well informed as to what aircraft they were going on their holidays with.

I think Jet2 will be sitting there thinking phew! - We don't have this mess to deal with...
Had Monarch survived and had their 737 MAX fleet in operations then this would have been a major blow for them.

Titan will be uber busy...

The S19 package holiday season is around a month away starting up, and whilst I reckon TUI UK can juggle their existing fleet around to cover their 6 MAX groundings (TUI UK have a 7th due to come) the TUI Group in the EU maybe not so easy to cover.

TUI UK have leased a load of 737-800's to Sunwing (who in Canada have had to ground their own MAX fleet) - I doubt TUI will be able to get those 738's back easily - TUI may get recently stored 757's RTS and keep the 767's longer?

Combine with the loss of Small Planet and Germania there are a lot of holiday flights to cover this coming season.


Don't worry - I'm sure Ryanair will be along soon offering a 'rescue fare' even if they don't operate on a route affected by any cancellations 😂

[rog747]

Don't worry - I'm sure Ryanair will be along soon offering a 'rescue fare' even if they don't operate on a route affected by any cancellations 😂

MOL - maybe he'll start a Ryanair ACMI arm? :P

[alm1]

MOL - maybe he'll start a Ryanair ACMI arm? :P

Speaking of Ryanair - how many of 737max aircraft due to delivery soon are already schedulled into their summer schedulle? Won't they have to cancel quite a lot of flights again?

[racedo]

Boeing have a market cap of over $200bn
That tells me investors don't see Boeing going into Chapter 11 any time soon.
Assuming the issue affects just the 737 Max aircraft, Boeing will not struggle to borrow cash at a non-punitive rate from mainstream banks if existing cash reserves prove insufficient. As an absolute last resort, Washington DC will not allow one of America's largest exporters and 2nd biggest defence contractor to go bust over a few hundred 737s

Market cap means was $250 billion less than 2 weeks ago and it has lost $50 billion since. Investors know that there is going to be a lot of pain and likely zero dividends. Boeing also has issues with the delivery of its Tankers to USAF, 2 years later with mega cost overuns. Airline customers are required to put a lot of money upfront in buying an aircraft, there are numerous clauses in there for later delivery by the airlines. Its why some airlines get into buy new aircraft knowing full well they will be late and then when compensation paid they sell the option on.

The figure I put on it may end up looking a tad conservative as 300 Max with customers. All grounded for how long nobody knows and airlines paying for them and also having to pay for replacement aircraft. Lets say 8 flights a day, $100 a ticket, 200 pax and thats $160k lost Rev or $5 Million a month plus lease costs of new aircraft. Ok that is max but no doubt a number will be agreed upon and as months go on it gets bigger.

Boeing delivered 226 Max's in 2018, 2019 similar or more so doubt any will be delivered for least 6 months. Question is do you stop producing or keep production going knowing you will have to potentially retro engineer what you have worked on.

Around 3 week of April will be the Boeing Q1 results, will be interesting to see what they provide, I expect a big number.

[racedo]

Speaking of Ryanair - how many of 737max aircraft due to delivery soon are already schedulled into their summer schedulle? Won't they have to cancel quite a lot of flights again?

Their schedule is 2 deliveries in May and 2 a month after that. So lets see they have 437 738s in operation and 2 Aircraft is going to make such a huge difference NOT. As a disposal program to sell on some of their older 738's was in place this just gets delayed for a couple of months. May need to hire in a couple of leased aircraft but see little or no impact.

[mik3bravo]

Agree, but there may well be a further complication if even a small proportion of the travelling public can't or won't distinguish between the 737 Max and the thousands of others without the particular model suffix. Very difficult to predict or quantify but it's difficult to believe that there won't be some collateral damage to the 737 brand. I imagine the PR and Commercial departments of "old" model 737s will be giving this some thought and will be looking for any signs of avoidance.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/999x421/serveimage_jpeg_88635cf34fd3aabb389a920e2383050fef0760e2.jpg

[pholling]

At least two US flights have reported that an automated system seemed to cause their Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes to tilt down suddenly.

In reports filed last year in a database compiled by NASA, the pilots said that soon after engaging the autopilot on their planes, the nose tilted down sharply.

In both cases they recovered quickly after disconnecting the autopilot.

There are two entries into NASA's ASRS database regarding 737MAX uncommanded pitch downs. However, it is highly likely that these two entries are exactly the same aircraft on exactly the same flight. They are both in the same month and the descriptions contained pretty much mirror each other. I don't mean the incidents mirror each other, I mean the descriptions of the discussions between the two flight crew members are basically mirror images. This means it is highly likely that it is the Captain and First Officer on the same flight. Also, this would not be an MCAS issue, since it is occurring when the autopilot is engaged. Though the logic is similar between the autopilot pitch trim logic and MCAS pitch trim logic, they are, in fact, different systems. The end result of bad alpha information will be the same, the aircraft will apply nose down pitch trim, and the fix is similar – if all else fails isolate the automatic stab trim. The autopilot stab trim runaway condition is a corner case on all 737s and it identical in the MAX to the NG. Pilots familiar with the NG, but having very little time in the MAX, should have not problem with this condition, it will have been well trained. The issue is that in the NG the runaway condition really only exists when the autopilot is on. In the MAX it can exist in all automation conditions. This can easily lead the the "What is the aircraft doing?" question. If you are at cruise altitude there is a lot of time to figure things out, but 500' AGL, your insurance policy is quite thin. This type of reaction is, unfortunately, quite common in accidents.

Remember Boeing developed the MCAS to give the 737MAX the same handling qualities in turns as the 737NG, ie eliminate the nose-up tendency that the LEAP engines create. The aircraft should be flyable with out it, and is most definitely flyable with the electric stab trim disabled (this would have been a test case). The issue is that it will fly differently. Systems that allow two different aircraft to handle the same are quite common these days. In fact the modern FBW systems are design to do just that. The 737 is a legacy and so any systems that does this will have been built on top of other systems which may not have been designed with that function in mind.

There are a number of questions that are not answered in the public domain, but should be asked

Why does the MCAS system only make use of one of the two AoA sensors? – You don't have triple redundancy, i.e. you can't tell which one is right if they disagree, but you don't actually need the system to fly the aircraft so a disagree could have made the system go INOP
Why is the 'AoA disagree' flight-deck alert an option on the MAX? If the airline doesn't buy that option you get things like 'IAS Disagree' instead. This can confuse the flight crew as to what the issue is. Note: In the case of the Lion Air accident the MTC log has the AoA disagree, but the crew only saw IAS disagree. This makes diagnosing issues more difficult
Why was there not a limit on stabiliser travel on MCAS? – In the extreme Boeing could have relied upon the stick-pusher to counter critical AoA deviations
What was Ethiopian's stab runaway training regime and had it incorporated MCAS failures in light of the LionAir accident? – Note: most airlines that already had 737NGs have not ordered/received MAX specific simulators, so training in that area would have to be 'kludged'.
What was the actual basis for suspending operations of 737MAXs? Keep in mind 737s were not grounded after the spate of rudder hard-overs in the 1990s. Training and procedures were updated and over time a modification was developed and installed that minimised the likelihood of a hard over occurring. Also, Airbus FBW aircraft were not grounded after Air France and Air Asia crashes that while that had different initial faults had almost exactly the same human factors failure modes. Again training and procedures have been modified and the US (others?) has mandated training specifically in high-altitude stall recovery to minimise the chance of those accident chains from happening.

There are a number of other things that need to be asked about the drive to minimise differences training on the MAX. Though those get a lot more complex. In some cases the answers to some of the above might be driven by the legacy of the 737 and the way airlines operate them. The 737 has not stood still since its development. Even the NG has had significant back-end avionics architecture changes. However, since airlines may operate mixed fleets it is quite common for the new capabilities brought by these changes to be disabled to prevent confusion/minimise the differences.

[PDR1]

This article sounds damning, but plausible:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/

Other than the author's fixation with "high speed stall" when he actually just means "stall", it sounds as if he could have talked to the right people. But if it IS true it's pretty damning about the state of engineering governance in Boeing IMHO.

PDR

[racedo]

Being serious as Boeing will have to rework every single plane and everything will need recertifying so it could be 6-9 months. In addition nobody will be taking deliveries of them either so your production schedule is shot for 2 years. Boeing will be lucky if cost is under $2 billion because of delays, rework and compensation. Every single plane will need this and they haven't even started yet hence my timetable may be too short. Just updating a piece of software like a laptop will not bring confidence back.



Ok quoting own post but Boeing costs to end of March were $1 billion and it hasn't started retro fitting yet.

[stewyb]

Well well well, Boeing seem to be suggesting that in fact a bird strike was the most likely cause of Ethiopian Airlines and guess what, shares are on the up! 😉

[c52]

In this article it isn't Boeing that's pushing the idea of a bird strike. https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/621586-us-administration-blames-foreign-pilots-737-max-crashes-9.html#post10476671