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As a token of appreciation for the inevitable bail out they be getting at some stage perhaps they will donate a Max for use as Airforce One.

The rest of them can be used to shelter the homeless ( on the ground).

I'm sure there's room in the cockpit for a farm jack strong enough to overcome the autopilot, and perhaps such a simple trick wouldn't require recertification.

To show how "safe" they are, a senior Boeing exec must fly on a scheduled passenger plane running the exact same versions with the pilots having the same training as other global airlines.

I think this is the one of the major ways for Boeing to dig themselves out of this mess.

If their senior management won't get on them, they're not safe.

"If their senior management won't get on them, they're not safe."

You are assuming there won't be a defeat device which detects the presence of top brass and allows the pilots to actually fly the aircraft properly.

"...make the plane easy and safe to build."

There seems to be a problem with the thinking of the top brass at Boeing. They want to make the 737 Max "easy and safe to build." but no bloody mention of "safe to fly."

See, it's always the bottom line with this bunch of chancers, keep the bonuses rolling in and to hell with the safety of their passengers and crew.

Do they have corporate manslaughter on the statute books in the US?

...with a special version of the software?

Our industry will come back, but it will take some years to return to what it was just two months ago.

For Boeing I hope they will not return to what they were two months ago. Then they would rather pull the plug right now. And from what I've learnt from a far distance, they should not only enhance product quality but also and especially production quality including their corporate culture.

It's a little bit funny how things have changed. I have a mate who is a maintenance engineer for QANTAS. 20 years ago he loved Boeing and hated Airbus. If QANTAS had a problem with a Boeing plane, a fix would be on his desk within 24 hours (at the very latest, it was often less than 6 hours), and if needed they would send Boeing staff there to help out. No questions asked. Airbus would never send anyone out and the turn around time was never less than a few days.

Just 20 years later, it's the complete opposite. He'll happily take Airbus aircraft over Boeings. Especially the newer Boeings.

Funny, how quickly higher ups in a firm forget what made them so popular in the first place.

There seems to be a widespread opinion that this change all goes back to the takeover of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing. The engineering-led culture of Boeing was replaced with MDD's corporate culture and the move of Boeing HQ to Chicago further separated the engineers from the people making the decisions.

Have Boeing received FAA clearance in order to resume production? Have they fixed the 400 planes they have waiting on delivery? Have they fixed all the other grounded 737MAX aircraft and upgraded them?

Short answer; no, no, no, and no.

Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo etc etc

Once you stop production on such a large and complex product, manufacturing skills quickly decline. There has to be a real risk to Boeing that if the line is shut down long enough it may never restart. Even the most automated production process has a lot of critical human intervention.

It actually is no large and complex product. In fact, it is soooo simillar to the original 737, anyone can fly one.

all good questions. Hopefully they have. We're not hearing this, so I'm guessing "yes"? Otherwise, why would they resume production?

Umm... because they're desparate to restart production before the product implodes completely?

Boeing haven't openly proclaimed there've been "yes" responses to all those questions. Had all answers been "yes" I'd expect a very public, very excited announcement to that effect.

Therefore, my money's on the answers to all being firmly "no".

Boeing don't need FAA clearance to build the planes. They do, however need clearance to fly the plane commercially - this is something that I believe they are unlikely to get in the near term.

Also independent certification from all other civil aviation authorities, because none of them will take the FAA at their word after the MAX.

They do, however need clearance to fly the plane commercially

Boeing needs approval from aviation regulators from other countries and not just the FAA.

Because of the MAX fiasco, the FAA has lost all "credibility". All the world aviation regulators, from Japan, China, EU, AU & NZ, Russia, etc. now have a "say" in it as the FAA "rubber stamp" is no longer worth any currency.

" Some of our customers are reporting that reservations are outpacing cancellations on their flights for the first time since the pandemic started. "

The same effect would be produced when most reservations in the system had been cancelled, as fewer bookings with the potential to be cancelled would remain.

In such circumstances an actual drop in the number of reservations could still meet the stated criteria.

Putting the 737 Max back into service could cause another massive drop in bookings for the airlines that use it, particularly now that Covid-19 has got people used to not flying. I certainly wouldn't take the risk myself, until they've been flying for a couple of years without accidents. And I presume they have to get approval from each country they fly over, and find pilots who're prepared to fly them. I think the most sensible thing to do would be to rebuild them all as an earlier model of 737; and the second-best would be to use them for cargo only, between coastal airports and flying only over the sea.

[1]Ryanair had apparently agreed to buy several of the 737 Max. It will be interesting to see if they fly them and possibly slightly terrifying to think that the alternatives will be extending the life of the current 737 fleet, some of those aircraft are looking "tired" these days, or taking a flight on a Max.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/03/ryanair-737-max-profits-boeing-jets

No no no, they're not 737-MAX's, they're 737-8200's - a completely different beast unrelated to the MAX so nobody needs to get worried about getting on one of Ryanair's examples.

(It's actually the specific model number of the high-density -8 version of the MAX generation of 737's, but strangely was not being used by anyone in their paintwork until after they started falling out of the sky)

Unless the EU grant it certification, Ryanair won't be flying it. And I can see, given that no one trusts the FAA any more, that certification taking forever (especially when there will be a subconscious effort to promote Airbus)

“more than a dozen initiatives focused on enhancing workplace safety and product quality”

Honestly, I don't fucking care whether John Doe does´t cut his finger anymore during assembly.

I

do

not

want

to

die

in a goddamn fireball 'cause they cut the corners during type approval.

Is that so hard?

Even if the FAA approve them (and hopefully it's a full type approval process and not just the same shtick as last time), Boing are going to have to do some serious work to convince the rest of the world that they are safe to fly. Then they are also going to have to convince the global public that they are safe. Much like cars and IT I suspect that the vast majority of the flying public have no real interest in the plane they'll be on, but if there's a plane people will be checking for, it's going to be this one. As an airline, at a basic level, it's some interesting sums to consider loss of bookings vs potential running cost savings.

Surly given the current circumstances there will soon be a whole host of secondhand efficient airliners available without the Boeing stamp on them to choose from.

It doesn't matter what happens with Boeing

How many people they kill

How many rockets they blow up

They have so many contracts with so many governments, that they will never fail, to many people will have too many egg on their face

Don't bet on it.

They're too big to financially fail, but one too many politically embarrasing situations and Boeing will start to lose those big contracts. Then they'll start losing money and cutting jobs (after all, they won't need the people who were working on those contracts anymore). They might get one or two bailouts, but no politician wants to be challanged on why they're spending so much money on an embarrasment of a company, and with less people working at Boeing there's less incentive for politicians "bringing jobs to their states". That's when the government will yank support and Boeing will go down hard.

The death Boeing dies will be a political one.

“more than a dozen initiatives focused on enhancing workplace safety and product quality”

Is definitely something you don't want to see when several hundred of these planes have already been delivered.

If/when the 737 MAX takes to the air they are going to need to be insured. How will Lloyds, etc, assess them as a risk ?

It would have been far cheaper for Boeing to have done a proper redesign job and made it higher off the ground when the fitted the bigger engines. The few bob saved on retraining pilots just would not be noticed compared to the consequential loss from by cutting corners. This is what you get when you let bean counters rather than engineers make decisions.

I think I read that there is not room for more undercarriage - the 50+ year old original design has hit the limit of what can be done.

It is already higher than 737-100.