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this is the a320neo, airbus's best-selling aircraft model, and this is its competitor, the boeing 737 max.

the former allowed airbus to surpass boeing to become the world's largest aircraft manufacturer.the latter almost pushed boeing off the cliff.

boeing, once the undisputed leader in the aircraft manufacturing industry, is now involved in multiple aircraft accidents and its stock price has fallen by 60%.

even the astronauts were unable to return home due to a malfunction of the boeing spacecraft.

america's industrial giant seemed to be falling in an irreversible direction.

hello everyone, today i want to talk to you about the model student made in america——boeing, why has it fallen to this point?

boeing in danger

if you fly frequently, you must be familiar with airbus and boeing.

in the aviation industry, airbus and boeing are the undisputed duopoly, producing more than 99% of the world's large aircraft.

the two rivals have been fighting each other for more than 50 years, and there is no one else in the ring. but judging by the current situation, boeing may be the first to fall.

but just six years ago, no one thought it would lose.

until october 2018.

"we lost contact with the ground on the morning of the 29th..."

" 189 passengers died..."

"the model is 737 max..."

"crash in indonesia..."

" flight number jt610 ..."

just five months later, another boeing plane crashed.

"on the 10th, an ethiopian airlines boeing 737-8 crashed, causing..."

"we continue to monitor the ethiopian airlines crash...."

both crashes involved boeing 737 max aircraft.from then on, boeing began a series of crises.

since 2021, boeing passenger planes have experienced a series of accidents such as built-in emergency doors falling off, rudder pedals getting stuck, missing external fuselage panels, engine fires, rapid landings in the air, tires falling off, tire explosions, runway runoff, and wing damage.

the two whistleblowers who exposed boeing’s safety issues committed suicide and died of illness one after another.

the three major rating agencies simultaneously gave consecutive credit downgrades, and boeing's stock price fell from its 19-year high of us$440 to us$170 today.

even biden mocked boeing after the "dropping door" incident, saying that he never chose to sit by the door when riding on air force one.

in june of this year, boeing's manned spacecraft "starliner" repeatedly delayed the astronauts' return time due to thruster failure and helium leakage.

if boeing can't repair the spacecraft, musk's space x will have to take action. it would be too embarrassing if its own scandal was turned into a living advertisement for its competitors.

it is hard to say whether boeing can rely on its past glory to survive for a few more rounds, but if we want to know how boeing got to this point, we have to go back in time.

the past and present of the aviation industry boeing

boeing was once the pride of american manufacturing. its factory in seattle has excellent engineering technology. from the 707 in the 1950s, to the 727 in the 1960s, to the 737, the mainstay of the fleet, boeing's aircraft have rooted quality and safety in the hearts of the american people.

in the late 1960s, boeing took a huge risk and gambled to create the 747 jet airliner.

the plane could carry 490 passengers and had engines twice as powerful as other aircraft of the time.

with first-class tickets costing $375 and economy class tickets costing $210, low fares made international travel affordable for countless people for the first time. it is no exaggeration to say that the 747 brought the world closer together.

before the a380,the 747 held the record for the world's largest passenger aircraft for 37 years and is also one of the aircraft with the best safety record in the world.

working at boeing has become a source of pride for many employees. even the nba team in seattle is named "supersonics" after boeing.

everything was going in the right direction until that famous acquisition.

in 1997, boeing spent $14 billion to acquire mcdonnell douglas, becoming the world's undisputed aviation giant.

but it would be more accurate to say that mcdonnell douglas bought boeing with boeing's money rather than boeing acquiring mcdonnell douglas.

the merged boeing executive team consists of 18 people, including 7 from mcdonnell douglas, 10 professional managers, and only 1 from the original boeing.

mcdonnell douglas's ceo, harry curtis stonecipher, became boeing's president and then its ceo.

mcdonnell douglas people firmly believe in the concept of "shareholders first", so the first thing they do after a merger is to divest and sell all high-cost, asset-heavy, low-return businesses and outsource a large amount of manufacturing operations.

then, the company moved its headquarters from seattle to chicago with great fanfare, bringing it closer to capital and further away from aviation.

boeing had thus transformed from a group of engineers dedicated to building great aircraft into a financially driven company.

in the words of a boeing employee: imagine that one day when you go to work, you find that a bunch of superiors have suddenly arrived in the company, and everything you have learned in the past 30 years is now wrong.

the new boeing is indeed strong in the capital market. from 2009 to 2019, boeing's stock price miraculously increased by 14 times and was highly favored by wall street.

airbus

the younger airbus is taking a completely different path from boeing.

it was originally a collective force of european countries, established to compete with american manufacturers.

in 1967, britain, france and germany began to cooperate in the aviation field. at that time, all of europe had a premonition that if they did not unite, they might become subcontractors of american aircraft manufacturers, and european airlines would have to choose american aircraft products for a long time.

only unification is the way out for the european aviation industry.

and with the advent of the "air travel" era, european politicians and manufacturers have also realized that commercial aircraft should meet the needs of the majority, not the minority, so ticket prices are key.

so in order to lower the airfare for european people, the three brothers jointly developed a "european short-haul airbus" plan and started manufacturing the a300 aircraft.

the a300 can indeed be called a collective work of europe. france is responsible for the manufacture of the aircraft cockpit, control system, and the lower half of the center fuselage. the united kingdom is responsible for the manufacture of the wings. germany is responsible for the manufacture of the front fuselage, the rear fuselage, and the upper half of the center fuselage. the netherlands is responsible for the manufacture of the wing moving parts, and spain is responsible for the manufacture of the horizontal tail.

the a300's overall performance was superior to its competitors of the same level at the time, thanks to its combination of various technologies. its fuel efficiency was 30% higher than that of mcdonnell douglas' dc-10 and lockheed's l-1011.

but it is not easy to convince the whole world that your own aircraft is better.

from december 1975 to may 1977, about a year and a half, the a300 did not receive a single order.

airbus could only slow down production and pull the finished aircraft to the tarmac to bask in the sun.

it was not until 1977 that eastern airlines, one of the four major airlines in the united states at the time, leased four a300s for trial flights and eventually ordered 23 a300 aircraft.

since then, the a300 series of passenger aircraft has been selling well, and airbus has begun its competition with boeing.

737 MAX how to kill boeing

before being acquired by boeing, mcdonnell douglas was on the verge of bankruptcy due to design flaws in its dc-10 and frequent air crashes. americans called the dc-10 "daily crash".

after the merger, boeing also had its own "daily crash".

in 2011, airbus launched a new, more economical version of the a320, the a320neo, which is 15% more fuel efficient.

at the same time, an agreement was reached with american airlines, which is also the first order reached between american airlines and airbus in more than ten years.

under such pressure, boeing panicked.

it rushed to launch the 737 max model to compete with it.

to deliver more planes quickly, boeing raised its monthly assembly target from 47 to 52.

machinists at the assembly plant worked 60 hours a week, and some employees even worked eight weeks in a row without a day off.

in order to speed up the process, some safety check steps may even be skipped.

judging from the configuration, both the a320neo and 737 max use new engines, but this is where the problem lies.

airbus's a320neo did not make many changes to the original structure, and pilots only needed a little training to take up their posts.

when boeing designed the 737 max, it upgraded the original engines.

but because the 737 flies closer to the ground, there isn't enough room under the wings for the upgraded engines.

so boeing's product development department came up with a good idea: move the engine on the wing upwards so that it is higher than the wing, which would provide enough space off the ground.

but the price is that when the 737 max is at full thrust, the nose of the aircraft will pitch up excessively, which may cause a stall.

to solve this problem, boeing came up with another good idea.

rather than redesigning the plane, they installed new software that would automatically push the nose of the plane down if sensors detected that the pilot was flying the plane at too high an angle.

boeing named this feature mcas (maneuvering characteristics augmentation syste).

but because the 737 max and the 737 are almost the same aircraft, boeing did not promote the mcas separately when selling it.

many pilots had no idea the planes they were flying had this feature, having only watched a two-hour training course on their ipads before boarding.

and there is no mention of mcas in the training materials.

he lowered his head suddenly, but it did not attract much attention.

until october 29, 2018when lion air flight 610 took off at full thrust, the nose of the plane kept tilting downward. the pilots fought against mcas many times, but to no avail. finally, 12 minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed into the java sea.

subsequent reports showed that it was a sensor failure that caused mcas to mistakenly believe that the nose of the plane was pitching too high, so it tried desperately to pull the nose down, leading to the accident.

the air crash five months later was also caused by the automatic triggering of mcas.

as the investigation into the accident progressed, it was discovered that mcas was not assessed as having complete and integrated functions in the certification documents submitted to the federal aviation administration (faa).

in other words, boeing acted rashly on the safety issue of human life and launched an incomplete function just to keep up with the competition with airbus.

in september 2021, the american public television service (pbs) and the new york times co-produced a documentary called "boeing's fatal flaw", which conducted an in-depth investigation and concluded that the systemic reasons behind the boeing crash were:competitive pressures, inadequate training and lack of supervision.

the 737 max is a monster born out of these reasons.

the faa released its internal assessment at a house hearing.

the report pointed out that if boeing does not change its design, the 737 max may be one of the models with the highest accident risk in decades, and it is expected that a catastrophic accident will occur on average every two to three years in the next 30 to 35 years.

since then, the 737 max has undergone multiple rounds of flight bans, production restrictions and other controls, and the design flaws of the mcas system have been resolved.

however, bizarre operations often occur on boeing's production lines, including but not limited to workers smoking marijuana while building airplanes, forcing bolts in with hammers, preparing qualification documents before the airplanes are even produced, etc.

to this day, boeing still has a backlog of nearly 5,000 aircraft orders, and people's strong demand for travel prevents it from collapsing so quickly.

but boeing seemed to have been infected by mcdonnell douglas's air crash characteristics, and a series of safety accidents occurred, which still linger to this day.

management and decision making at boeing i bought the foreshadowing 30 years ago

if we look back at boeing's series of operations, it made fatal mistakes at many key points.

the acquisition of mcdonnell douglas caused boeing to lose its engineering culture, moving out of seattle made boeing abandon its successful experience in manufacturing, and outsourcing manufacturing business made boeing unable to control product quality. these strategic mistakes laid the groundwork for boeing's decline.

as for the emergence of boeing 737 max, it is only a matter of time.

between 2014 and 2024, boeing spent more than $40 billion on stock buybacks, which was met with overwhelming condemnation from the public and ultimately led to the ceo's resignation.

this is commonplace for boeing. if you compare boeing's corporate history with the ceo's tenure, you will find that at every accident or unexpected time point, the ceo invariably apologizes, resigns, and steps down, and then everything continues.

it can be said that boeing’s decline is a typical example of an over-financialized capitalist enterprise.

for boeing in its early days, profits would come naturally if product quality and safety were guaranteed. but this is definitely not what wall street wants to see, as they want shareholder returns.

so after gaining a dominant position, enterprises changed from being innovation-driven to finance-driven.

after all, making money by producing cars and airplanes is not as fast as making money by money.

so big companies are never good at innovation, and monopolies and vested interests want them to maintain the status quo and extract more economic value.

such cases are not uncommon in the manufacturing industry. boeing, general electric, philips, kodak, and the familiar apple are among them.

logically speaking, boeing, which was forced into a corner by the airbus a320neo, should have increased its investment during the research and development phase of the 737 max. however, in fact, between 2011 and 2015, the proportion of boeing's r&d expenses to the company's revenue continued to decline.

so where did the money go? the answer is to buy back shares, benefiting shareholders.

in the words of former boeing ceo stonecipher, "boeing is a great engineering company, but capital wants to invest in a company that can make them money."

excessive financialization has caused countless companies to lose their creativity. this is why the united states has been trying to promote the return of manufacturing in recent years.

if we only focus on short-term shareholder returns without considering long-term investment in research and development, we will eventually lose both. this is a profound lesson that the american manufacturing industry has learned under the wave of financialization.

written by: clouds and clouds change

video production: the bad reviewer of b station

art: huan yan

image, source：

What Happened to Boeing? -Bloomberg Originals

The real reason Boeing's new plane crashed twice -VOX

boeing is in danger! - zhihu

a strategic mistake sowed the seeds of disaster for boeing-fortune

boeing's road to decline-fortune

The Questionable Engineering of the 737 Max -Real Engineering

Why Airbus And Boeing Dominate The Sky -CNBC

Boeing vs. Airbus: Why Aviation’s Biggest Rivalry Is in Flux - WSJ

boeing's big fall