How so? For example if staying competitive (and therefore surviving) forces you to squeeze through without recertification, isn’t that a sign that maybe there is a better version of the regulations that should be considered that doesn’t have bad incentives?
What about the well-documented reality that numerous pilots from airlines with higher requirements have had their planes experience MCAS trim but knew what was happening (since a wheel starts spinning in front of them) and were able to flip it off trivially? I’m not saying Boeing doesn’t share SOME of the blame, but it feels weird to me to ignore the fact that many pilots (literally hundreds) have had no serious issue with MCAS over hundreds of thousands of hours.
> The idea about unions sharing some blame is especially absurd and the suggestion of it makes your post very difficult to take seriously. Even if unions caused Boeing to become unprofitable, they are blameless in the decisions that led to the crashes.
Can you explain your view point more? To me it feels dismissive but I am trying to keep an open mind. In my view and the view of many Boeing friends, the unions have been abusive and created a big amount of avoidable expense and inefficiency to protect their own interests. I’m not making a claim as to whether that self-interest is ethical or not. But I’ve heard many stories of people not being allowed to do some trivial task because they have to wait until the person in a specific job shows up to do that task because of union rules that artificially protect unnecessary jobs. Those situations are difficult for management to overcome, since they have other things to spend time on, but they are real and do add to costs and time delays. That has to come from somewhere else in the company. I agree with you that the unions are not directly responsible for any decisions, but their effect is still real and can push the company into a corner.
These situations tend to be complex - it’s not as simple as pointing at someone who is evil and does bad things - which is why I think we cannot ignore these potential causes that are many degrees away or shared blame between multiple groups (including Boeing executives).
