BlueSky1976 wrote:

I'll personally make every effort to avoid all 737 MAX flights until the aircraft is truly proven safe in service.

FF630 wrote:

Delta needs to conserve $, no MAX for now unless Boeing gives them an excellent deal on price and financing.

cv990Coronado wrote:

csavel wrote:

EdmFlyBoi wrote:

The idea that the majority of the flying public (who are not avgeeks) actually know what they are flying on makes most of public's opinion of the Max irrelevant. If the airlines rebrand the safety cards to 737-8 then most will for sure have no idea what kind of aircraft they are on. I commonly ask that question of non-avgeek friends and they differentiate the plane by whether it has propellors or not. Some don't even recall the number of aisles. People will forget quickly the history of the aircraft.

AA, United, and Southwest will have them back in the air relatively quickly I reckon - the fuel savings are too good not to be flying them.

Ordinarily I would agree with you but the publicity on the 737 Max is such that people will try to avoid it. It's been on the news almost as talked about as the US election. My friends and family will call on me, the resident AVgeek and ask, "737-8, is that the Max? I don't want to fly on the Max." Eventually that will go back to normal but I am old enough to remember the DC-10 grounding - and how people *did* avoid it after it was ungrounded and it took awhile before its reputation got better. (Yes I am aware that the DC-10 wasn't at fault but we are talking about passenger perceptions)

The Chicago crash was not but the Paris Turkish and the near-disaster of AA new Buffalo most certainly were. This is when it should have been grounded but as we know a 'gentleman's agreement' fixed that.
I believe the overreaction to the AA Chicago crash was a direct result of the other underreaction. The DC-10 wasn't grounded by many European airlines as far as I remember.
Hopefully, the MAX does not have another crash for some considerable time if ever because should it happen I fear it will be finished in the eyes of the flying public.

MIflyer12 wrote:

FF630 wrote:

Delta needs to conserve $, no MAX for now unless Boeing gives them an excellent deal on price and financing.

Delta doesn't need Boeing to finance these, unlike AAnother carrier. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/10/america ... eries.html

An easy $Billion ought to buy, what, 25 MAX8s for delivery over the next 24 months? IMHO, the big U.S. carriers will be wary of placing new orders (new, not simple pull-aheads) while still begging for money to extend the Payroll Support Program, or to expand the CARES Act loan program. If they see they're on their own (a fair likelihood if the Senate stays Republican), they will take responsibility for financing and restructuring the carriers as needed.

lightsaber wrote:

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

Unless the buyer was buying the model as a replacement for old frames and needs replacement. Air Canada and Icelandair will want a return to service.

Icelandair will benefit tremendously from the improved performance. I forgot about their grounded fleet.

Spot price if JetA $1.20/gallon or about $397.81 per metric ton:
https://www.airlines.org/argus-us-jet-fuel-index/

Low was $0.61/gallon
https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/ ... y=jet-fuel

To put in perspective, in the boom times $1.70/gallon to $1.98 (monthly average):
https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/ ... months=240

So fuel is pricey enough that the MAX pays for the upgrade.

Lightsaber

slider wrote:

DalDC9Bos wrote:

I’m gonna disagree with a couple of you regarding willingness to fly on it. While most of the time the flying public has no idea what it’s flying, this is different. It will now be about the flying public making sure they are flying anything but the Max. Heard this from several non-av geek friends and family. They said they will look for the plane type on their ticket confirmation and check-in page. Even heard people, for example, trying to distinguish physical differences of the Max and other 737s at Southwest specifically. These crashes were the first back to back crashes in our 24/7/365 social media and online news obsessed world. This is far different than the 1990s days of a single breaking news coverage on the day of crash and updates barely mentioned on the evening news for the few that even watched it.

I agree with you here. Unlike prior air catastrophes, this really grabbed people's attention because of the high-level cover-ups and failures of certification, due diligence, and so on.

In short, the MAX events shook people's very TRUST in the system.

morrisond wrote:

The only probable way that there are more crashes is if Airlines fail to take the other Major learning from the MAX disasters (and AF447 and Air Asia 8501) into account and adjust their training programs appropriately.

That is - on Average Manual flying skills seem to be severely lacking amongst Airline pilots and in recurrent training they need to be made a much larger part of the training syllabus and practiced when appropriate during normal operations so pilots don't forget how to manually control an aircraft.

There will be some MCAS training - but as far as I'm aware nothing will change in terms of 100-200 Hour wonders finding themselves in the right seat of an Single Aisle jet with very little manual flight experience in adverse conditions.

EdmFlyBoi wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

The idea that the majority of the flying public (who are not avgeeks) actually know what they are flying on makes most of public's opinion of the Max irrelevant. If the airlines rebrand the safety cards to 737-8 then most will for sure have no idea what kind of aircraft they are on. I commonly ask that question of non-avgeek friends and they differentiate the plane by whether it has propellors or not. Some don't even recall the number of aisles. People will forget quickly the history of the aircraft.

AA, United, and Southwest will have them back in the air relatively quickly I reckon - the fuel savings are too good not to be flying them.

Momo1435 wrote:

SouthWest statement.

https://www.swamedia.com/releases/relea ... to-service

They expect that the MAX will go back into service in Q2 2021, because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to the aircraft before they can be used in service and all pilots will need to retake the original MAX training + the additional training. SW will also perform readiness flights without passengers with every single MAX before they are put back into service.


https://www.southwest.com/737MAX/

2eng2efficient wrote:

Momo1435 wrote:

SouthWest statement.

https://www.swamedia.com/releases/relea ... to-service

They expect that the MAX will go back into service in Q2 2021, because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to the aircraft before they can be used in service and all pilots will need to retake the original MAX training + the additional training. SW will also perform readiness flights without passengers with every single MAX before they are put back into service.


https://www.southwest.com/737MAX/

Surprising they cannot do RTS sooner than Q2 ‘21. Was AA just more proactive at preparing for RTS? Or is WN more conservative?

2eng2efficient wrote:

Momo1435 wrote:

SouthWest statement.

https://www.swamedia.com/releases/relea ... to-service

They expect that the MAX will go back into service in Q2 2021, because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to the aircraft before they can be used in service and all pilots will need to retake the original MAX training + the additional training. SW will also perform readiness flights without passengers with every single MAX before they are put back into service.


https://www.southwest.com/737MAX/

Surprising they cannot do RTS sooner than Q2 ‘21. Was AA just more proactive at preparing for RTS? Or is WN more conservative?

JonesNL wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

Delta doesn't need Boeing to finance these, unlike AAnother carrier. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/10/america ... eries.html

An easy $Billion ought to buy, what, 25 MAX8s for delivery over the next 24 months? IMHO, the big U.S. carriers will be wary of placing new orders (new, not simple pull-aheads) while still begging for money to extend the Payroll Support Program, or to expand the CARES Act loan program. If they see they're on their own (a fair likelihood if the Senate stays Republican), they will take responsibility for financing and restructuring the carriers as needed.

I believe even the vaunted Delta will finance.

That said, Boeing needs the PR if sales and those airlines able to take the risk will see phenomenal deals. Note, this won't be dumping as Boeing will sell above manufacturing cost. I expect WN, FR, DL, UA, AA, VietJet, IAG, and TK to at least negotiate. For DL, I could see taking -8, -9, and maybe -10s (but less likely due to the large A321 backlog).

It looks like it will take over 30+ days before the first enter commercial service.

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL4N2I43LV

The No.1 U.S. airline said it will begin with non-commercial flights in early December before resuming passenger flights later in the month.

Lightsaber

Leeham posted an article saying Boeing is selling the 9max at $41mil while they normally sell above $50mil, ~20% difference(similar difference for the other models). I don't know what their manufacturing cost is for Boeing, but 20% is quite a big chunk from their margin...

lightsaber wrote:

I believe even the vaunted Delta will finance.

2eng2efficient wrote:

Momo1435 wrote:

SouthWest statement.

https://www.swamedia.com/releases/relea ... to-service

They expect that the MAX will go back into service in Q2 2021, because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to the aircraft before they can be used in service and all pilots will need to retake the original MAX training + the additional training. SW will also perform readiness flights without passengers with every single MAX before they are put back into service.


https://www.southwest.com/737MAX/

Surprising they cannot do RTS sooner than Q2 ‘21. Was AA just more proactive at preparing for RTS? Or is WN more conservative?

MIflyer12 wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

I believe even the vaunted Delta will finance.

Oh, I expect DL will continue to finance rather than paying cash (it's not Delta handing over a check for L-1011s in the early 70s), but DL doesn't need Boeing to finance them - they will have other commercial financing (and not just CARES Act loans) available.

Revelation wrote:

T4thH wrote:

Have I not read somewhere few days ago (I do not know where any more), the European commission will agree to unground the MAX for now, but have requested, that a third independent AOA indicator have to be retrofitted in reasonable timeframe?

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/ ... -third-aoa quotes the head of EASA:

Ky said he expects EASA to give its technical sign-off in November, at around the same time as the U.S. FAA’s green light, adding that operational authorization for the aircraft to re-enter service depends on individual airlines and civil aviation authorities.
...
EASA’s requirements go beyond what the FAA laid out in a draft mandate issued in August by adding a third AOA sensor to the model. The synthetic sensor, which will provide more data redundancy for systems including the MCAS, will be introduced on the 737-10 and retrofitted on other models, including those in service, Ky said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ryan ... SKBN27I0Y5 says:

“Boeing are not in a position to engage in discussions on the MAX 10 at the moment,” O’Leary told a conference call. “They have pushed back production of the MAX 10 by anything up to two years ... so they are not really at a point where they can give us any deliveries ... or discuss pricing.”

So it seems although we have seen one MAX 10 prototype roll out we probably won't see another one for up to two years, and since the 3rd AoA sensor is being introduced with MAX 10, MAX operators will have to do without T4thH's business for another two years or so.

dtw2hyd wrote:

Any details on what is fixed?

Cointrin330 wrote:

Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

ojjunior wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

Any details on what is fixed?

That's exactly what I would like to know.
What (whatever reason was) and how it was fixed and what did Boeing change in its structure to avoid similar cases in future developments.
Saying they fired the responsibles is not an answer.

dtw2hyd wrote:

Any details on what is fixed?

Now the burden is on airlines to line up funds and take deliveries. It will be interesting to watch how it unfolds.

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

With the possible exception of Southwest, no one has the available cash to create and operate an entirely new training program right now. Surviving is the priority at the moment.

beechnut wrote:

Meanwhile no news from Transport Canada...