WION Edit: The fall of Brand Boeing
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Greed always hurts, Boeing is bleeding.
Boeing has decided to suspend the production of the 737 Max aircraft. This comes six months after the fleet was grounded in March after two fatal air crashes that killed 346 people.
On WION Edit, we list some lessons to be learnt from the Boeing saga. One of the biggest assembly-line halts in Boeing's history.
Boeing will see a cash burn of around 1 billion dollars per month due to the production halt.
What are the lessons?
Lesson number 1. Don't take passengers lightly. It has been 9 months since the 737 max has been grounded after two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Had Boeing been open and grounded the planes after the first crash, it could have prevented the second one. But Boeing kept diverting attention to software upgrades.
Boeing's former manager spoke about the alarming conditions at the factory in Washington, he said that Boeing's boosted production despite not having enough mechanics and workers.
The problem is, he came out last month and not earlier. Not when lives could have been saved. And greed always hurts, Boeing is bleeding.
Boeing shares saw the worst fall since 2001 soon after Ethiopia crash.
Lesson number 2. Don't presume that the user will manage software changes. In both the fatal air crashes, the crew did not react in the ways Boeing assumed because they weren't trained. Safety assessment was off the mark. It's incredible that Boeing would take the safety of the passengers for granted.
Lesson number 3. A lot needs to be done to bring some sense to aviation regulation. Several countries continued to fly these planes even after the lion air crash as they were waiting for an FAA decision.
Besides, Boeing continued to deliver these planes till its march 2019 grounding. All those practices are under the scanner now.
Boeing may have thought that the support of the US government would be enough to escape action, but overconfidence and greed will cause Boeing to bleed a billion dollars a month.
(Disclaimer: WION Edit is the channel's take on the big events of the world)