Don't worry, the airlines will achieve some great consolidation, good for the bottom line!

I've been reading up on this and there seems to be a design flaw with heavier engines situated in a different place from previous models.
So it seems to me that the problems may still persist and there may always be a greater element of un-safety (sp.?) even if there is a software "fix".

My flight is not till August. I wonder if AC will change me to another flight this far in advance. And if it would charge.

My innocent (naive?) little mind thinks that they used to fly all these routes BEFORE they bought the MAX planes. I cannot imagine that the planes used 2 years ago have all been sold. So why can't they get them out of "storage" and begin to re-commission them again?

I've seen the graveyard for panes down in Arizona and it was mind-boggling.

I'm not saying that the airlines are not doing a good job with the situation at the moment, because I think they are. However I don't think the MAX planes are likely to be back in service next week, or even next month, maybe not even next year. So what is their long-term plan???

........ daughter only had 2 problems.

An unanticipated extra 4 hours in Edmonton with a 9 year old and no-one to spell her off.

The man on BOTH her planes, once sitting in front of her and then sitting behind her, who had some movie or game on his device that consisted of loud repeated gun shots for the whole time, without wearing his "buds", and no crew member willing to ask him to either wear them or turn the sound off!

Some airlines as they got MAX aircraft retired older aircraft and they were replacements and not additional planes to the fleet, so while airlines were flying the routes, they were also retiring aircraft as they got new ones, or maybe even adding routes they did not previously fly.

Also remember just because an aircraft is in storage and has an airlines name on it, doesn't mean the airline still owns the aircraft (or leases it in the case of a lease) and has access to it.

Also an aircraft in storage if the airline had no plans to ever use it again may have gutted it of seats and anything useful and may no longer be airworthy.

Lots of reasons airlines wont just have the ability to add aircraft quickly to their fleet.

If the grounding persists long term, airlines will need to adjust their schedules, US airlines are expecting the fleet to be back in the air by summer, from what I have read the software fix should be out within the month, Boeing has been working on it since December so its not something they just started on and may have been out earlier had the FAA not be subject to the government shut down which apparently created delays from some reports.

I do wonder if Air Canada 737 MAX pilots are getting paid during this grounding, they have no other 737 variant and if they are anything like US carriers pilots can't exactly hop over to a new aircraft type overnight.

Boeing might have the software fix done by "next month" .............. but the airlines have got to get their pilots trained properly, this time. That's going to take time after the fix is released.

If only the airlines were like bus companies, kept a few "old" buses in reserve ........ Vancouver's original trolleys were the Brill............ fantastic trolleys buses that were still in operation when we came here in 1968, and there was one back on the road last year!

Part of the sales pitch for the MAX was the minimal (<1hr with an Ipad) training needed to transition from a 737 NG to a MAX. However, given that AC don't have any NG's AFAIK, let's hope those pilots are still current on other types!

Planes are a little more expensive than trolley buses.... Both AC and WJ have a bit of slack in their fleets but not a great deal. If the MAX grounding is longer term then all the airlines that run them will be chasing additional capacity by wet leasing what is likely a relatively small pool of available aircraft. (Spinning up those birds from the desert is not a quick process.). Sunwing or Transat have already chartered in a B767 to help.

Airlines have some slack/spares in their fleet, but Air Canada for instance has 24 737 MAX in the fleet, no airline will have enough slack to cover that many aircraft and maintain a full schedule. I am sure both WS and AC have every available aircraft and crew they have flying to try and keep disruption to a minimum, but with 24 aircraft grounded, there will be disruption simply no way around that.

According to Wall Street Journal

"The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval of Boeing Co.’s 737 MAX jetliners, according to people familiar with the probe, an unusual inquiry into potential lapses in federal safety approvals for new aircraft."

https://outline.com/pBYSWt

Seattle Time's article from today.


https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...ion-air-crash/

"Federal Aviation Administration managers pushed its engineers to delegate wide responsibility for assessing the safety of the 737 MAX to Boeing itself. But safety engineers familiar with the documents shared details that show the analysis included crucial flaws."

"Both Boeing and the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story and were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the second crash of a 737 MAX last Sunday."

Anyone involved with the validation of complex software will realise what a minefield it can be. Even simple applications can have so many conditional statements embedded within them that testing and validating each branch under all possible conditions can be extremely difficult and time consuming.
Approval for such software at a terminal is one thing, and that's hard enough, but where it involves simulators and actual flying time in aircraft it lends itself to cost cutting and poor application of inappropriate standards designed for yesteryear.
Add to this the pressure being applied from the manufacturer to approve, what is really a confidence trick, and you have accidents waiting to happen.
I doubt that the average FAA technician or standards officer is qualified to undertake inspection and judgement of complex flight control software, the best they can do is to fly the plane and witness how it performs. In the case of the MCAS routines installed in the 737 MAX, this was obviously not good enough and the inevitable bug remained hidden until discovered by those unfortunate enough to experience it.
So Boeing engineers are to install software updates. Am I expected to accept that those responsible understand and have tested it under all flying conditions in the short time before these aircraft are flying again?
I think I'll wait a year or two before I answer that one.

Remember Lauda Air, 1991 -

If you read the Seattle Times article it says that essentially certification was outsourced to Boeing to self certify or was signed off while testing was not completed to meet a deadline.

The bolded text is the crux of the matter. Can a fix be put out in a matter of weeks, tested and certified. Pressure will clearly be on to do so to get the planes flying again. An additional, mandatory training component for crews is also likely IMHO. One of the dynamics of this particular issue though is passenger perception and awareness, amplified or empowered by social media and reporting. In other words the planes might be certified safe and passengers might still refuse to fly on them.

EDIT to add: To my last sentence, I'm supposed to be flying with my wife and kids on a MAX in July to the UK on WJ via Halifax. Plus I'm a regular traveller between St John's and London with AC who fly the MAX. So I have a fair amount of interest in this subject!

I wonder how common self certification is within the worlds airline level manufactures?

Does for Transport Canada let Bombardier self certify or does TC do it all at every step? Same with the relevant authorities in the EU for Airbus or Brazil for Embraer.

Judging by news reports, US is unusually/uniquely lax on this front. Example of the differences in approach from Brazilian and US regulators on the 737Max training in https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...=.3384e9aa4883. In Europe, EASA have sole responsibility for certification.

I'm reminded of entertainment rides in Vegas, as I nervously mumbled "I know this country is the litigation capital of the world, but when I'm being cantilevered a hundred metres over the ground, I really like knowing that Stockholm and Berlin had a say in the safety regulations"

Rides to very greatly by state, some states do a better job vs others.

Go to Disneyland in California and every ride somewhere usually near the entrance has a sign that says "documents related to the certificate of compliance of this attraction may be viewed at city hall."

Seems to be quite a few regulations in California regarding amusement park rides.

One thing I notice there vs in BC is elevators, all the elevators in California have a license posted inside each elevator that shows last inspection date, when it expires and various other details about the elevator, where in BC I have never noticed such a thing.