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Boeing's relationship with government agencies is beyond alarming. There needs to be better oversight and accountability for the sake of both passengers as well

Boeing's relationship with government agencies is beyond alarming. There needs to be better oversight and accountability for the sake of both passengers as well as workers in the aviation industry. People's lives are more important than profit. I can't believe this is a controversial position in our society.

tgv 3y ago
I don’t think it is controversial, but rather overlooked whenever it’s convenient. Yes, that would speak ill of the people involved.
alexsereno 3y ago
Effectively all of the aerospace and defense industries are like this. I’m not even sure it’s controversial, it’s just so normalized
- kevmo 3y ago
  "New Spin on a Revolving Door: Pentagon Officials Turned Venture Capitalists" - https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/30/new-spin-on-a-revolving-door-pentagon-officials-turned-venture-capitalists/ https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/30/new-spin-on-a-revolving-door-pe...
bendergarcia 3y ago
Beoings relationship with the U.S. only barely starts at commercial planes. They support the U.S. mission militarily. It is and should be alarming but also not surprising. The gov cozies up with any corporation that can further its interest
- golergka 3y ago
  If that's how they cut corners in civilian aviation, which is used by the public all the time, how can they cut corners when they deliver obscure military hardware that just sits in the warehouse waiting for WW3?
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    The KC-46 saga gives the complexities of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus#Flight_tests_and_delays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus#Flight_... On the one hand, Boeing fucked up the project badly. On the other hand, the contract was written so Boeing ate the $5B+(?) in rework / deficiency remediation.
    - jemmyw 3y ago
      Reading more around it, Northrop Grumman won the initial contract with an Airbus model and Boeing complained, got the proposal rewritten in their favour. They had an official who passed them info and got a highly inflated contract written, who was then jailed for corruption, Boeing was fined and the CEO was fired. Yet the US is still going with them for the tankers despite the ongoing problems that still aren't resolved. The Airbus version has now been in service in other countries for 10+ years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        From memory, without looking back through Wikipedia, the original contract award was killed. Then Boeing won the new bid. Acquisition at that level is extremely cutthroat, so who knows what happened. The broader perspective is that the current major aircraft contracts are: - F-35 Lockheed-Martin - B-21 Northrop Grumman - KC-46 Boeing - X-37 (Space) Boeing - MQ-25 (Naval Refueling) Boeing That seems like a pretty fair spreading of contracts among the remaining majors, especially if you had less faith in Boeing to produce combat equipment, but still wanted to maintain it as a company.
        jemmyw 3y ago
        We do know what happened though. Boeing used an insider to pass information about their competitors bids and then gave them a high paying job with a large sign on bonus. They got the contract killed because they knew they could work up a furor about a European design being used by the US. Of course it's fine in the other direction. There's legitimate reasons to not want to depend on an ally for equipment but in this case it seems that Boeing haven't been able to deliver on it at all. Losing might have been a good kick up the ass to improve for the next time this type of contract comes around.
jakeinspace 3y ago
Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, RTX (Raytheon), etc are essentially subsidiaries of the DoD, with privatized returns. They are too vital to the US military to be allowed to fail. Many countries like Russia and China have more overtly state-owned weapons manufacturers, whereas the U.S. pretends that theirs are legitimate free-market suppliers. When your business is deemed essentially to national security, and when the government signs trillion-dollar multi-decade contracts for equipment and maintenance, market forces no longer apply.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  There is no guarantee that a country has to have a leading-edge aircraft manufacturer. On either the civilian or military side. If companies lose too much money and don't receive bailouts, they simply cease to exist. And you can't magic a new one on demand, given the specialized expertise and subcontractor requirements for something this complex. So the reality is the government is stuck with a multi-variable optimization problem -- what combination of price, competition, and sustained R&D/production capability is best? There is no easy answer. The modern, less-competitive, merged market is a deliberate consequence of the US refusing the spend Cold War levels of money to keep a larger number of manufacturers afloat.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> There needs to be better oversight and accountability for the sake of both passengers as well as workers in the aviation industry The people providing oversight were the problem. Any progress here needs to avoid an "another hull on the Titanic" sort of proposal.

tgv 3y ago

I don’t think it is controversial, but rather overlooked whenever it’s convenient. Yes, that would speak ill of the people involved.

alexsereno 3y ago

Effectively all of the aerospace and defense industries are like this. I’m not even sure it’s controversial, it’s just so normalized

kevmo 3y ago
"New Spin on a Revolving Door: Pentagon Officials Turned Venture Capitalists" - https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/30/new-spin-on-a-revolving-door-pentagon-officials-turned-venture-capitalists/ https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/30/new-spin-on-a-revolving-door-pe...

bendergarcia 3y ago

Beoings relationship with the U.S. only barely starts at commercial planes. They support the U.S. mission militarily. It is and should be alarming but also not surprising. The gov cozies up with any corporation that can further its interest

golergka 3y ago
If that's how they cut corners in civilian aviation, which is used by the public all the time, how can they cut corners when they deliver obscure military hardware that just sits in the warehouse waiting for WW3?
- ethbr1 3y ago
  The KC-46 saga gives the complexities of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus#Flight_tests_and_delays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus#Flight_... On the one hand, Boeing fucked up the project badly. On the other hand, the contract was written so Boeing ate the $5B+(?) in rework / deficiency remediation.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    Reading more around it, Northrop Grumman won the initial contract with an Airbus model and Boeing complained, got the proposal rewritten in their favour. They had an official who passed them info and got a highly inflated contract written, who was then jailed for corruption, Boeing was fined and the CEO was fired. Yet the US is still going with them for the tankers despite the ongoing problems that still aren't resolved. The Airbus version has now been in service in other countries for 10+ years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      From memory, without looking back through Wikipedia, the original contract award was killed. Then Boeing won the new bid. Acquisition at that level is extremely cutthroat, so who knows what happened. The broader perspective is that the current major aircraft contracts are: - F-35 Lockheed-Martin - B-21 Northrop Grumman - KC-46 Boeing - X-37 (Space) Boeing - MQ-25 (Naval Refueling) Boeing That seems like a pretty fair spreading of contracts among the remaining majors, especially if you had less faith in Boeing to produce combat equipment, but still wanted to maintain it as a company.
      - jemmyw 3y ago
        We do know what happened though. Boeing used an insider to pass information about their competitors bids and then gave them a high paying job with a large sign on bonus. They got the contract killed because they knew they could work up a furor about a European design being used by the US. Of course it's fine in the other direction. There's legitimate reasons to not want to depend on an ally for equipment but in this case it seems that Boeing haven't been able to deliver on it at all. Losing might have been a good kick up the ass to improve for the next time this type of contract comes around.

jakeinspace 3y ago

Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, RTX (Raytheon), etc are essentially subsidiaries of the DoD, with privatized returns. They are too vital to the US military to be allowed to fail. Many countries like Russia and China have more overtly state-owned weapons manufacturers, whereas the U.S. pretends that theirs are legitimate free-market suppliers. When your business is deemed essentially to national security, and when the government signs trillion-dollar multi-decade contracts for equipment and maintenance, market forces no longer apply.

ethbr1 3y ago
There is no guarantee that a country has to have a leading-edge aircraft manufacturer. On either the civilian or military side. If companies lose too much money and don't receive bailouts, they simply cease to exist. And you can't magic a new one on demand, given the specialized expertise and subcontractor requirements for something this complex. So the reality is the government is stuck with a multi-variable optimization problem -- what combination of price, competition, and sustained R&D/production capability is best? There is no easy answer. The modern, less-competitive, merged market is a deliberate consequence of the US refusing the spend Cold War levels of money to keep a larger number of manufacturers afloat.

robertlagrant 3y ago

> There needs to be better oversight and accountability for the sake of both passengers as well as workers in the aviation industry The people providing oversight were the problem. Any progress here needs to avoid an "another hull on the Titanic" sort of proposal.