this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Working for Boeings PR department must be absolute madness right now… imagine having to somehow excuse all those fuck ups and every week there is a new one
The thing is, every Boeing plane that has any problem is going to make it to the news right now. So it's very hard to see what is relevant and what is just "one of those things". So, this will make them look worse than they really are.
Having said that, they have problems. My opinion is that cost-cutting has created all their recent actual problems (MCAS, missing bolts, loose bolts etc) and I'd argue that unless the actual location(s) responsible for these problems is identified, the safest thing to do would be to recall ALL aircraft recently (last 3 years AT LEAST) serviced, repaired or had their configuration changed at a Boeing owned or subcontracted location should be reviewed for substandard work.
My reasoning here is that if we have loose/missing bolts on the 737 Max 8/9 and -900ER. It won't stop there, it is going to almost certainly be an institutionalised problem of quality control slippage that could affect any aircraft maintenance, repair, or adjustment operation.
But, I'm not an aviation expert, so my opinion is worth very little.
I agree with your comment, even though I have no idea on the technical aspects. What I can weigh in on is crisis management, especially communication.
Boeing needs to take control of the situation and actively start communicating and showing that they are working on fixing this thing. In Situational Crisis Communication Theory you would call it a rebuild approach. They tried denial, they tried downplaying, it’s not working. A rebuild strategy is usually the last resort, as things like admitting your mistakes and fixing them are rarely appreciated by investors. Furthermore it’s usually a huuuuge cost to do a recall on that scale. But Boeing need to show the public that they are actively working on improving the situation, to earn back their trust. So at least a partial recall should be considered.
You’re exactly right in your first paragraph about the news. The media and the public are very sensitive to Boeing quality issues rn. These articles won’t stop unless one of three things happen. Either Boeing gets their shit together and gets some effective crisis management and communication done, the company goes bust, or something else turns up in the news that replaces this. The third option will be the most likely, but it will also haunt them forever. It’s like that exploding galaxy note 7 situation. There were articles about that for every new generation of Galaxy Note, despite Samsung doing pretty well in investigating the issues. And while the following Note phones sold alright, the whole thing was a significant loss of trust and money for Samsung and enabled competitors like Huawai to catch up.
Can't have a PR department if you laid them off.
The company is still worth over 100 billions. They do something right.
Otherwise I agree with you. It's almost hilarious to see fail after fail (as long as you are not in the plane).
What they do right is having a duopoly with Airbus, and great military contracts. So investors know that even if things are shit rn, they will probably get better again.
Furthermore, while I agree that Boeing probably will not go bankrupt over this, the valuation sometimes is not a great indicator of what’s going on internally. Enron was worth over 60 billion. Half a year later they were at zero. Now I’m not saying Boeing is nearly that bad, but they are in some trouble for sure.
It’s call “military contracts”
Military contracts.
Well they were not doing so hot just 4 years ago when they said they were short a cool 60billion..
Google's worth billions, and they can go probably about 6 years doing nothing right before that changes. It took Yahoo! a while, you'll catch on.
Nestle is worth billions. Sure, a bunch of kids die and we use slavery, but they must be doing something right.