Boeing hit with order cancellation

Boeing received its first cancellation order for 737 MAX 8 jets. Indonesia’s Garuda airline said it wanted to withdraw its request for 49 of the aircraft, with The Wall Street Journal noting that passengers have lost confidence in them following two deadly crashes. Both the Ethiopian Airlines and the Lion Air jets that crashed were 737 MAX models and neither had opted for extra safety features. Boeing will no longer charge more to make one of those upgrades — known as the disagree light — standard on all new 737 MAX planes,

“Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. The angle of attack indicator, one among the optional upgrades, displays readings of two sensors. The other one which is called the disagree-light, gets activated only if these sensors are at odds with each another.”

Hardly surprising. Boeing’s engineers will have to deliver a 100% fix for the problem and pretty fast too or; this aircraft will exit the market. Pretty high probability that other airlines will follow suit. As a passenger, would I fly on a 737 MAX even after the fix? No. If we ran an airline, we would do the same as Garuda. Passenger and crew safety comes first. No margin for risk, no matter how small.

As the pilots of ill-fated Boeing jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia were fighting to control their planes, they were lacking two important safety features in their cockpits.

Boeing

Some thoughts come to us, when we think about this:

This doesn’t sound very expensive, so I am not sure why it was an option rather than a standard feature.
Not all airlines have chosen this option, so what does that say about thier safety stance?

But, overall Boeing loses $4.9B order for 737 Max jets, but Indonesia’s Garuda carrier open to buying different model.

Also, America’s authority as a global industry leader in aviation is suffering damage.