Technology

I assume this is all some elaborate joke based on an alternate universe, since in our reality, the golden age of safe aviation and good engineering on the planes corresponded to strong safety regulations, and deregulation is exactly what cleared the way for Boeing management to cut corners in the exact negligent-homicidal way they are doing and have done. I can’t find the punch line though, can you help me?

Ah yes. Blame the regulations for busting up the union, moving production to South Carolina, then firing all the expensive workers that care about quality control.

Right, those pesky regulations that require things like bolts on door panels. DAMN THEM. DAMN THEM ALL.

Boeing hasn’t built a new plane in a very long time.

Wait, what? They have created the 787 in the 2000s and the 777X and 737 MAX in the 2010s.

The issues are not because they didn't have projects, but because those projects were done primarily thinking about costs, time and profits. Do it fast and do it cheap always means do it bad, and this applies to any industry

The 787 entered service in 2011. I would not call that a very long time.

They absolutely should have produced a clean sheet 737 replacement. But cost overruns from the 787 program, competition from the much faster to develop A320neo, and worries about existing operators going A320 if they developed a new type rating stupidity scared them off.

The real problem is due to the regulatory environment. Yes those rules are important, but they've also effectively banned new aircraft from being built.

Should we laugh at this? Lolz? If anything regulations should encourage better safety innovations! Government wants safety and efficacy from corporations that directly affect people's lives. Just look at Volvo and tell me their reputation isn't known for safety.

Regulations are pain in the hole, I get it, but without it we are back to the days of selling snake oils and monopolies of the Gilded Age. As they say in my field: "Do you think compliance is expensive? Think non-compliance." The only people discouraging regulations are the ones who stand to benefit from ridding it in the name of short term profit. STOCKS ARE UP!

The real problem is due to the regulatory environment. Yes those rules are important, but they've also effectively banned new aircraft from being built. There are now generations of engineers that are experienced in making a new aircraft look like a small tweak to an existing one.

That has very little to do with regulation and everything to do with airlines being cheap bastards and not wanting to retrain employees and reconfigure ramps.

It takes a long time to design new planes, and other than the benefits of the larger engines, there’s not much reason to. Airbus benefited from the newer design of the A320 with its longer landing gear and thus was able to just slap the new engines under the wings, whereas Boeing needed to redesign the 737’s engine configuration. But beyond that, Boeing and Airbus already have planes that meet the various market segments or have no reason to try to compete, like how they buy into the regional jet market. No reason to design from the ground up, instead they just improve the same model.