Can Boeing come back from its woes?

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe interview with Judson Rollins, Senior Consultant at aviation consultancy, Leeham Co.

Transcript

00:00saying in the United States a prototype jet has become the first privately

00:04funded aircraft to break the sound barrier and boom supersonic is also the

00:09first civilian plane to break the sound barrier since British French supersonic

00:13airliner Concorde the company hopes this will pave the way for the development of

00:18overture it's supersonic commercial airliner let's talk now to Judson

00:23Rollins who's senior consultant of aviation consultancy at Liam company

00:28good to see you welcome to the program so as we were hearing there a catalogue

00:32of problems really there for Boeing do you think it can turn itself around yes

00:39I think it's within Boeing's reach but a lot of things have to go the right way

00:44as your correspondent pointed out 2024 was truly an annus or Iblis they had the

00:50door plug that blew off the 737 max in January the commercial space issues as

00:55he mentioned the strike the fact that they had to repurchase a major supplier

01:00on the verge of bankruptcy a the triple 7x flight testing problems it's just

01:04been one problem after another most of which have been self-inflicted the path

01:09forward is also complicated because of supply chain slowdowns and supply

01:15shortages commodity shortages especially due to the war between Ukraine and

01:19Russia so the new CEO has quite a task ahead of him one thing as well that we

01:25haven't really talked about is this cap that's being imposed by the FAA on at

01:28the production of its 737 model how's that affecting the company's ability to

01:33try and recover financially certainly the cap is affecting its ability to

01:38produce airplanes which reduces its cash flow but in reality the supply chain

01:43situation has worsened so much since the FAA put down that cap that's Boeing is

01:49probably several months away from being able to get back to its pre-COVID rate

01:54even if the FAA gave it clearance there's also really isn't there a crisis

01:59of trust if you like what's being done to try and restore that trust among

02:05customers and regulators well the board pushing out the previous CEO was

02:10certainly a great place to start and the new CEO Kelly Ortberg is pushing through

02:14a lot of management changes of his own and I think that's a necessary first

02:19step but the next step that's taking place is just an open transparent

02:25approach to the regulator and being fully fully forthcoming about what the

02:30problems are and what the solutions are we have yet to see what a grand vision

02:35is from Kelly Ortberg but I'm not sure the time has come for a grand vision the

02:39time right now is for basic blocking and tackling basic issue resolution and then

02:44thinking about what a longer-term recovery might look like let's talk

02:48about this new prototype jet the first privately funded aircraft to break the

02:52sound barrier if you think back to Concorde it's been more than 20 years

02:56since that last flu why is supersonic travel now back what has changed since

03:02Concorde was effectively cancelled that's now allowing this new type of

03:06prototype jet the technology has always supported it but the reason Concorde

03:12ultimately failed was because it just was not an economically viable airplane

03:16it was the the per seat kilometer per seat mile costs were simply too high and

03:20passengers weren't willing to pay enough of a premium so that the airplane could

03:24break even frankly I'm not sure that has changed what has changed is that someone

03:29found sufficient private capital to back boom supersonic and back this xb1

03:34program but I think it really remains to be seen whether this new airplane can

03:38eventually achieve commercial viability on that point major airlines American

03:44Airlines United Japan Airlines they've actually placed orders for overture what

03:50does that say about the industry confidence in the potential for

03:53supersonic travel it should be noted that these are not in fact firm orders

03:58but actually letters of intent or memorandums of understanding and so it's

04:02not quite the vote of confidence that a firm order would be I think it indicates

04:07that the airlines have an interest in seeing boom succeed but there's still a

04:11lot of skepticism and a lot more boxes that would need to be ticked before you

04:14would see a firm order with cash behind it just some great to talk to you thank

04:19you very much for coming on the program that's Judson Rawlins from Leeham

04:22company

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