this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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[–] taanegl@lemmy.world 134 points 8 months ago (3 children)

TL;Dr Boeing got ate up internally from the failed company they had acquired, becoming a little bitch to a bunch of cocaine addled wall street ninkompoops, who had to be acquired because they made flying death traps, who eventually made Boeing make and sell flying death traps.

It's the circle of capitalism.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 88 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Are we talking about the time McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money?

[–] Album@lemmy.ca 26 points 8 months ago
[–] CptEnder@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

The irony is the whole "if it's not Boeing I'm not going" phrase came from the era of airplanes like McDonald Douglas being so utterly shit - the company that bought Boeing. Basically a bunch of engineers got buttfucked by business school dropouts.

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 84 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Textbook case of late stage capitalism and a resounding success for Boeing's major shareholders.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 56 points 8 months ago (4 children)

The ceo of Boeing was the ceo of my bosses last company. He cut every corner possible, took his paycheck and ran right before the company nose dived into the ground.

Now that he’s CEO of Boeing he did the one thing he set out to do. Get the Max series in the air so he can get his fat paycheck. Hopefully nothing literally nose dives this time.

[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The term is "GE flunkie." Literally a fucking accountant without a moral compass.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)
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[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 20 points 8 months ago

Is that the guy who called Trump personally after the 2nd 737 Max crash crying to not allow the FAA to ground the plane?

Meanwhile the rest of the world was like “fuck that shit” so basically for a few hours the Max could only fly in US airspace and finally Trump got the memo & told Boeing guy “sorry fam”.

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[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 63 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Boeing has made life a lot easier for Airbus over the past few years.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Which is good for Airbus, because they haven't been doing themselves a lot of favors, either. The A380 is a pretty good plane that nobody seems to want.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, the trend turned against large planes like the A380 and 747. At least until they can make them more environmentally friendly.

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[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 62 points 8 months ago

This whole LWT segment is a perfect illustration of the transition to late-stage capitalism at the microeconomic level, featuring examples of shareholder primacy, regulatory capture, communication breakdown, and recursive subcontracting. If I was teaching junior college microeconomics (Economics 1B), I'd consider showing this in class or recommending it to my students for viewing.

It really is a good schoolbook example of how a large reputable company goes to shit from the common ailments of real-world capitalism.

[–] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 37 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think a lot of people would actively refuse to fly on a 737 MAX in the future.

The design of the MAX was flawed to begin with. Essentially, the Boeing 737, designed in the 1960s,could not compete with the newer A320Neo on fuel efficiency due to Airbus redesigning the A320 around the much larger, state of the art CFM LEAP engines (Neo stands for "New Engine Option"), Boeing choose to jerryrig the CFM LEAP engines on their existing 737 airframe instead of redesigning another plane around the engine.

Now, since the engine is oversized with respect to the airframe, the newly christened 737 MAX has a tendency to tip upward due to too much lift when flying. Boeing opted to correct this in software by having the plane automatically correct its flight by tipping downward if it senses the plane was tipping up, which they called the MCAS. And of course, since one of the selling point of the 737 MAX Boeing promised was that no additional training was needed for the 737 MAX, the pilots did not know about MCAS, much less have a way to have a manual override for it.

So what if the sensors made a mistake and tipped downward when it's not supposed to, you ask? We found out in 2018.

It is not something that is fixable barring a grounds up redesign. But that's not going to happen.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago (8 children)

At this point I'm not flying on any Boeing if I can help it. There's no way to know how recently it was made or refurbished and anything that Boeing touched in the last few years is suspect.

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[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So I lived in the Everett area and worked near the Boeing plant. My ex gf's brother worked directly on the line. One family dinner someone mentioned the two MAX crashes mentioned in the video. He totally brushed them off and said

They were from """n-word""" countries. They crashed it themselves.

He was the most blatant, but the other Boeing folk I knew spoke simmiliarly.

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Someone on Boeing subreddit said almost same thing under this video. They just used politically correct term, 'backwards'.

[–] stellargmite@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

Yeh that was one of the most shocking aspects of Boeing behaviour post the first Max crash. But it was the attitude from the top. Blaming the victims, on effectively racial or cultural grounds. An incredibly cynical and disgusting tactic, to deflect from their own abject failure of a business model resulting in death. The whole corporation showed how it values its passengers in those moments for me, ( and as a non American). They have no interest in our safety and due to this I haven't stepped on a Boeing plane since the Lion air incident. Not that they care. It also made me wonder to what extent Boeing are responsible for the poor air transport safety history of Indonesia and elsewhere. I would bet they haven't put a cent into atleast helping to improve it, considering how much money they have probably made there - it being an archipelago and the 4th most populated country globally. Several hundred people were sacrificed in order to expose these criminals for what they are. Profit making is too often a conflict of interest when lives are at stake.

[–] DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone 35 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Why is Boeing even still operating after 737 max, Alaskan airlines, tax avoidance?

[–] weew@lemmy.ca 45 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Boeing's #1 competency isn't airplanes or engineering, it's lobbying.

[–] billiam0202@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago

Honestly, this is probably true for any company once it reaches a sufficient size.

[–] exu@feditown.com 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They're the only other big plane manufacurer beside Airbus and being the only remaining US based one, probably important for national defense as well.

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Fucking nationalize them then. And prosecute their senior management.

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Sir this is America. We only do hardcore capitalism in this country, preferably to the detriment of the average citizen and benefit of CEOs and stockholders the way God intended. /s

[–] falkerie71@sh.itjust.works 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They kind of have to, otherwise it would be an Airbus monopoly, and there are plenty of planes they still need to deliver to customers. Management needs a total reshuffle for sure though.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Their management doesn't just need reshuffling, but we also need to start throwing a bunch of them in jail. They made decisions that specifically led to people dying and endangered countless others.

[–] taanegl@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

"Too big to fail", or: "congress is bought and paid for ".

[–] skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works 15 points 8 months ago (4 children)

You can take the quotes off too big to fail, they literally are. Their only competitor in the world is Airbus. Boeing going bust would be catastrophic to the global aviation industry and doubly so for the USA.

That said, I wanna see Lockheed step up and do a commercial plane. Gimme a jumbo jet that breaks the sound barrier and has a radar signature the size of a credit card pls.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 12 points 8 months ago (4 children)

catastrophic to the global aviation industry

Oh no!

...I mean until planes run on hydrogen. The climate really wouldn't mind covid levels of global aviation for another decade or so.

OTOH the US is of course in a tough spot, they're reliant on aviation for domestic transport because they never bothered to invest in rail. And don't come and say "the US is too large": You can have a high-speed sleeper train from NYC to LA, 14 hours total travel time shouldn't be hard to achieve, eight of which you can spend sleeping in perfect comfort, ten if you're indulgent. Proper food. You can even take a shower. Leave in the evening, arrive in the morning, especially as a travelling businessman consider it a hotel on wheels. You can fit a bloody McDonalds in a train if you want.

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[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago

I bet if we give them more tax money they’ll do better next time. Promise

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 28 points 8 months ago

Why aren't these people in prison? They're not going to change anything until there's murder charges.

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe this will be one of the drops in the bucket that show that the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders is the issue.

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[–] nullPointer@programming.dev 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

no one escapes enshitification

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[–] IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 20 points 8 months ago

Number go up mean safe go down.

[–] WaterWaiver@aussie.zone 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

(Australia)

Any other way to see this? Or is this show not freely available (ie you have to pay for it)?

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

High seas was my option after they moved their upload to Thursday. HBO claims that it would promote praying customers, I claim otherwise and they lost my YouTube subscription.

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[–] FollyDolly@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (3 children)

My uncle repaired airplanes for a living. I have never flown as an adult and I hopefully never will. Somethings I just can't unlearn. When he first started things were great, but by the time he retired it was a shitshow of cutting corners on replacement parts and who knows what else.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I wish I knew who made the plane that scared me, I remember it was a Southwest flight, oh, almost 30 years ago now.

I had a seat on the wing and the engine STOPPED. No more pleasant engine noise, just silence.

And I'm like "We're OK, there's more than one engine..."

Then the silence was broken by the sound of them trying (and failing) to re-start the engine...

"Boy, they sure seem intent on re-starting that engine..."

[–] OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip 11 points 8 months ago

One of the defining characteristics of Southwest is that they ONLY fly 737s (Boeing). That and their focus on domestic flights helps them offer good rates and low/non-existent fees. I guess their maintenance only has to focus on one plane. However, it seems like they got caught up in Boeing's "737 MAX is the same plane" scam because they fly some of those too and I believe it affected their stock.

[–] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Yet flying has gotten safer and safer, statistically.

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[–] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Commercial flying remains the safest way to travel, and it continues to get safer. That's not to minimise your reluctance to fly. I get it: if something goes wrong it's 99.9% sure you're going to die, and know about it long enough for your last moments to be horrifying. But the facts is the facts and the facts is that you're way more likely to die on a bicycle journey.

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[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

Let's cut all the things that made us great!

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[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 7 points 8 months ago (4 children)

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[–] BillMurray@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Boeing used to be a company that put safety and quality first, they revolutionized plane travel with the 737. But recently Boeing has put share price ahead of safety and decided to move their corporate office from Seattle, where the planes are built and engineering is done, to Boston (edit: Chicago, not Boston). Why? Because executives heard that successful companies have corporate offices in a separate location. Then the merger with McDonnell Douglas, who has a horrible track record just made Boeing's quality slide even further. Boeing now parcels out work to subcontractors who subcontract even further and there is no oversight or quality control on the components. This results in "door plugs" missing bolts or having bolts that were not tightened properly on the 737 max.

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[–] RamSwamson@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

In case anyone wanted to buy one of those sweet shirts he inadvertently plugged in the clip, I checked the Boeing store and it appears they have pulled it already.

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