Tag Archives: 737 MAX

737 Max? Not just yet

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Boeing and at least one U.S. air carrier are delighted with themselves.

They say they have fixed the mysterious problems associated with the 737 Max, the jetliner that crashed twice nearly two years ago, killing hundreds of passengers.

It was determined that the Max had a computer engineering problem that caused the plane to plummet to Earth. Boeing grounded the aircraft while engineers toiled to fix the problem.

The Max is flying again.

Well, you are welcome to consider me as one American who is delighted that he has no plans to fly commercially in the immediate or medium-range future. The COVID pandemic is enough of a reason to stay grounded.

The idea of climbing aboard a 737 Max — with its attendant troubles — just solidifies my desire to remain on the ground.

I wish American Airlines and Boeing well as they resume flying the troublesome airplane. I just am not going to book a flight on one of those birds anytime soon.

Fire a CEO and replace him with … the boss? Huh?

There’s something about this story that doesn’t compute with me. Follow me for a brief moment.

Boeing Corp. has fired its chief executive officer, David Muilenberg, over the crisis that has grounded the once-highly touted 737 MAX jetliner, which was involved in two crashes that killed nearly 350 passengers and crew members. Boeing didn’t like the way Muilenberg handled the matter.

The company wants to restore confidence in the management, not to mention in the aircraft, the production of which Boeing has suspended.

So, who is brought in to replace Muilenberg? His boss, the chairman of the Boeing board of directors, David Calhoun, who takes over as CEO effective immediately.

I don’t know about you, but I always have presumed that a company in search of a way to rebuild shattered confidence and restoring its reputation would look outside its management structure for a fresh outlook, a new way of doing things, someone who can kick some a**.

The 737 MAX isn’t flying any time soon. The company isn’t building any new aircraft until it can fix the engineering the issues that reportedly caused the fatal crashes. The impact of this grounding has been significant right here, at Dallas Love Field, home base of Southwest Airlines, which operates a huge fleet of 737s.

Firing the CEO and then replacing him with the guy to whom he reported, it seems to me, doesn’t instill much confidence in me that the company has found the right formula to fix what has gone so terribly wrong.