[conspire] 737 MAX story keeps getting more fractally bad

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):

> So, ... how do we "fix" it?  

If your question is:  'How do we fix the 737 MAX?', then the best answer
is going to be the one that -- thankfully -- gets applied because nobody
trusts Boeing or the FAA any more.  It'll be whatever gets agreed to by
European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Transportation Safety
Board of Canada, National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil, and the FAA.

EASA has been finding more and more and more damning 737 MAX problems
that Boeing and FAA either had no clue about or swept under the carpet,
take your pick:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-05/europe-sets-out-demands-for-boeing-before-max-can-fly-again
At last count, EASA had found _five_ major problems (not counting a
number of others not deemed critical), including the latest one, finding
situations where the autopilot failed to disengage.

I trust I don't have to underline how bad _that_ is.

All of these things were quietly conveyed along official channels to
Boeing and FAA, so we can't be sure how many others are turning up that
haven't leaked yet, but the implication is that the rest of the world
has been applying the serious scrutiny that FAA utterly failed at.  

As a result, I greatly doubt these turkeys will have revenue-producing
flights again until some time in 2Q 2020 at the earliest.


This isn't actually a huge number of airframes in service (relatively).
Here are all 737 MAX deliveries as of May:

31 Southwest Airlines
25 GECAS: GE Capital Aviation Services
24 American Airlines
24 Air Canada
18 Norwegian Air Shuttle
16 Air China
16 China Southern Airlines
15 TUI Group, formerly TUI Travel PLC (UK)
14 United Airlines
14 Fly Dubai (UAE)
14 China Eastern Airlines
14 Lion Air
15 Air Lease Corporation
12 Turkish Airlines
12 WestJet
10 Xiamen Airlines (China) 
 8 BOC Aviation Limited (Singapore)
 7 Hainan Airlines Holding (China)
 7 Shandong Airlines (China)
 7 SpiceJet (India)
 6 Aviation Capital Group
 6 SilkAir (Singapore)
 6 Aeromexico
 6 GOL Linhas Aereas (Brazil)
 6 Copa Airlines (Panama)
 5 AerCap (Ireland)
 5 Ethiopian Airlines Group
 5 ICBC Leasing (China)
 5 Qatar Airways (Qatar)
 3 Icelandair
 5 Shenzhen Airlines  (China)
 3 Avolon - Ireland
 2 Fiji Airways
 2 Business Jet / VIP Customer(s) 
 2 Timaero Ireland Limited (Ireland)
 2 Royal Air Maroc (Morocco)
 2 SMBC Aviation Capital (Ireland)
 2 Aerolineas Argentinas
 2 Enter Air Sp. z o.o. (Poland)
 1 9 Air (China)  
 1 SCAT Airlines (Kazakhstan)
 1 Smartwings, a.s. (Czech Republic)
 1 Silk Road Leasing (China)
 1 CDB Financial Leasing (Ireland)
 1 China Development Bank Fin. (HK) 
 1 Mauritania Airlines
 1 CIT Aerospace LLC
 1 Garuda Indonesia 
 1 Comair Limited (South Africa)
 1 CDB Financial Leasing (Ireland) 

That's 387 deliveries, with 4937 more orders firmly booked 
but not delivered.  If the 387 never flew again, and the 4937 unfilled
orders were cancelled, there'd be a bunch of countries super-pissed-off
at Boeing Company, and several major airlines would have serious
problems, but otherwise the world's transport systems wouldn't be much
affected.

[Source:
http://active.boeing.com/commercial/orders/displaystandardreport.cfm?cboCurrentModel=737&optReportType=AllModels&cboAllModel=737&ViewReportF=View+Report]