Stranger

WildcatYXU

The ship containing the longer 737 landing gear had sailed in the mid nineties when the 737NG design was frozen. They were designing an entirely new wing for the 737, so they could have done a new landing gear as well. But they didn't. Why? Most people say "Because of WN", but it is not entirely correct. While WN's needs undoubtedly had an impact on the 737 NG's design, the goal was to beat the A320 on CASM and range. The longer landing gear would go against both goals. It would be heavier, it would take up more space in the wing and would trigger the need for wing evacuation slides (you do realize that if you use the over wing exit in case of evacuation with un-collapsed landing gear, you have to jump down from 6' height?). Extra weight and less space in the wing again. The longer landing gear would possibly eat up the precious advantage the 738 has over the A320. OTOH it would likely enable Boeing to use the larger CFM 56-5 which would help with the fuel economy. But then, a larger fan would mean more weight and higher drag. So trade-off's would be at work again and who knows how would the whole thing pan out.
Nonetheless, Boeing went with the short landing gear and the rest is history. Why did AC go with the 737 when they already had a more advanced aircraft on premises still puzzles me. The 787 delay compensation discounts could have been used elsewhere.

CZAMFlyer

An excellent question, and one wonders what the internal conversations may be regarding the mess that's been created within the AC fleet. I suspect the 'in for a penny, in for a pound' adage is the prevailing one amongst the executive ranks.

RangerNS

The comparable options at the time were the MAX or something from the new 320 series.

As AC has baggage gear that already can deal with lifting above shoulder height and pilots trained on the 320, it was a curious decision before it turned out the MAX has fatal design flaws.

How much were these delay credits?
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Fiordland

I thought the process was something like:

- Step 1 - Wow - What a great deal. Buy the A320 at an Amazing price. (Maybe some money went to a former PM or not, who knows). European design that has few North American customers, so we got a really good deal. Wow, this is actually a good aircraft, we should keep these forever (or until they are end of life).

- Step 2 - Wow - What a great deal. Buy the Embrear jets at an amazing price. Similar new aircraft, great price. Did I say it was a great price.

- Step 3 - Darn those Jungle Jets are a problem. Perhaps you get what you pay for, We are not going to make that mistake again of going for what ever aircraft have a the best deal.

- Step 4 - Wow - What a great deal. Boeing is willing to give us some trade in on the Embrear aircraft. We can finally off load those. Look they are giving us a great deal on these new 737 Max.

- Step 5 - Darn those Max Jets are a problem. Perhaps you get what you pay for. We are not going to make mistake a third time. At least we are finding second hand A320 from airline that are going into receivership.

CZAMFlyer

In a very similar yet equally apt adage, the phrase 'penny wise and pound foolish' also springs to mind.
If only AC studied British currency more closely.

WildcatYXU

Well, while the whole thing would be immoral if the bribery allegations are true, AC still purchased the world's most advanced and most capable narrow body aircraft available in 1988. That cannot be said about the 2013 purchase.
I'm afraid this current mess will lead to further bad aircraft acquisitions.

bimmerdriver

Not sure why this puzzles you. They made a business decision, based on the information that was in front of them. Obviously they had no way to know the MAX would be grounded. Rather, the 737 NG has a very good operational record. Considering that AC has years of operational experience with the A31X / A32X, Boeing must have given them a pretty compelling offer.

WildcatYXU

Yes, nobody could expect the grounding even in their worst nightmares.
Yes, Boeing had to give them a compelling order. So compelling, that the forgot that only one model of the whole line-up had better fuel economy than the Airbus equivalent. And even that was only a promise in 2013 and the advantage is very likely to disappear. The current snafu just nailed it. What's worse, it may lead to another bad decision some 10 years down the road when they will have to select a large widebody replacement. For the same reason they selected the 737 over the 32X.

bimmerdriver

There is more to a business decision than fuel economy. Purchase price, customization, delivery options, and many other factors also contributed. Again, it's not like AC has no experience with Airbus. As the incumbent, the business should have been a slam-dunk for Airbus. Instead, they lost to Boeing. That says as much about Airbus as it does about Boeing. Also, please explain how the 737 MAX situation will lead to "another bad decision some 10 years down the road".

CZAMFlyer

All it says about Airbus is that Airbus didn't suffer widebody entry-into-service delays (787s) that provided Air Canada with a powerful Ace card that they could use to negotiate substantial discounts - beyond what Airbus or any non-indebted manufacturer could offer. If the 787 development program were smooth and free of snafus, AC's narrowbody competition may have ended differently.

RangerNS

Humans and corporations tend to remember the last entity that hurt them with ongoing anger. The second last entity that hurt them is history and in the running.

See also: duopoly.

bocastephen

I would take the position at this point that the MAX is dead. With every passing day, the public is losing more confidence, and when the airplane is determined to be "safe", hardly anyone will fly it and the bookings will prove that out. It might fly in other countries where people are more ignorant, or their trust in government is higher than in North America, but I just don't see Southwest, United, Air Canada, or AA bringing back this plane unless they try and force it down everyone's throat by refusing to identify the aircraft version at booking and then refuse waivers when people don't want to fly.

Now the 787 is coming under additional scrutiny, and that is a story in play with broad consequences depending on what is found out - either by government regulators doing their job (unlikely) or by investigative journalists doing theirs.

A few airlines are now pushing Bombardier to stretch the C Series and make it a viable alternative to the MAX, which as a long term play, indicates crashing confidence in Boeing and the MAX models and puts the 797 under threat - and if anything damaging emerges about the 787, we could be looking at crossing the skies in old 747s, DC10s and L1011s dug up out of the desert.

Mountain Explorer

I hate to be rude, but this seems like a whole lot of nonsense to me. I believe the vast majority of people will return to flying the Max within a year of return to service. Airlines are not going to hide the plane type. It's extremely unlikely that a 5-abreast C-Series could be extended long enough to compete with the Max. L1011s etc will not be dug out of the desert and returned to service.

I almost wonder if your post was satire and I missed it. Seems ridiculous to me.

bocastephen

Then you underestimate the public. Once significant risk is attached to a product, or to a company for that matter, it's extremely difficult to restore that trust - and the length of time needed to fix the defect just makes it that much harder.

You might think my post is nonsense, but I am pretty confident that if and when the MAX returns to service, the flying public will soundly reject it and the this rejection will be a significant issue in getting these airplanes operating in any significant numbers. Maybe Canadian folks are different, but in the USA this will be an issue.

However, at the rate Boeing is progressing, we're already looking at late 1st, early 2nd quarter 2020 before the plane returns to service, and I have shaky confidence in even those dates holding.