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In the midst of several electrical and battery related issues, FAA has ordered the entire 787 fleet grounded pending further investigation of the issues, following Japanese airlines ANA and JAL who also grounded their fleets in recent days.
My dad works there and we have a lot of Boeing stock. Looks like that's gonna suck for me.
An old, cramped 737 that is probably a decade older than comparable aircraft from other airlines? No thanks. They are cheap though, I will give them that. And friendly.
The airlines already bought the planes. I doubt boeing will lose much over this, there are some really brilliant people there. They will find the problem and solve it soon enough. Gotta keep in mind that its really only a minor electrical problem, when your talking about commercial airlines, even a small issue will ground a plane.
This post lacks a basic understanding of how airline finance works.
Generally the way the contracts work out, you pay a fee to "order" a plane and then wait in line for it to be your turn to actually deliver the plane, at which point you either pay cash (or another finance entity pays cash or you make payments through Boeing finance. An issue like this could cause many outstanding orders (2 or 3 hundred) to be cancelled. That could have a devastating effect on Boeing's bottom line.
Further, it's a little more than a "minor electrical problem."
A little smoke on the Tarmac is no big deal, a little smoke at 38,000 over the pacific somewhere between LA and Tokyo is.
The big deal here is that Boeing outsourced not just component production, but also a lot of systems integration, something they had never done before. The results have been problem after problem and delay after delay.
An engineer who works in management like my dad will be fine, you can trust that after the disaster the 787 project has been so far that Boeing will through every available asset at it.
My fear is that these problems are not isolated, but evidence of systemic problems relating to the outsource not just of components, but of systems integration. There's a great article talking about it here: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/15/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20110215 (can't hyperlink on iPad)
I was on a 757 last saturday, and they had this whole video on how magnificent the 787s are. Wonder if I'll see it on the return flight, I'm thinking not.
I read somewhere that Boeing had the same issues with previous plane releases (i believe the 737 was specifically mentioned). When you're designing something as complicated as a plane things are bound to go wrong sometimes. Give them some time and I'm sure the kinks will get worked out and we'll all be happy as a clam flying in787's in the near future.