Not one of my usual channels so I don’t know how much credence to give this, however it seems that Boeing is still struggling with its safety culture and recent fall from grace with the FAA:
Imo, after the 737 Max debacle it is going to take Boeing quite some time to get their credibility back.
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In my entirely unqualified view, more scrutiny is probably a healthy thing and will hopefully force the financial departments let the engineers do the right things.
Obviously it’s a funny time for aviation with COVID and all that, a few headwinds and I assume these extend to the manufacturers…but I doubt Boeing is going to go under if they have to dot their i’s and cross their t’s extra much for a while.
They’ll be fine. They first screwed the US taxpayer. They then screwed the flying public. Then they obfuscated. But I still believe in the company and its engineers. The 787 is a money factory. Nothing comes close. The 777 used to be that but the A350 has since surpassed it. The 777 is still a marvel. The world needs a 747-sized airplane. What the world definitely doesn’t need is four engines. The math therefore says that the -9 has to happen. Two years or four doesn’t really matter so much.
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You are probably spot on, though QA at Boeing is atrocious throughout their factories which is a large issue when you need to produce fresh aircraft. And the FAA may certify the -9 but regulators around the world aren’t as happy to rubberstamp the FAA’s work anymore.
Boeing took the FAA down with them which is probably going to have long term consequences for Boeing and the US aviation industry(which… largely is Boeing…).
EDIT: The A350/A330Neo combo is putting a lot of heat on Being too to get the -9 out.
My airline has been sitting on an A350 order that they’ve regretted for years. The talk was that with the recent huge A321neo order, Airbus would forgive our A350 options. Until that recent order, it seemed certain that the A350 would never come here. Now the scuttlebutt is that it will. I don’t like flying Airbuses. They are boring and soulless. But I think we’d be fools not to take both the A350 and the 330neo. The 757s and 767s which I so adore are not getting younger. And Boeing doesn’t make a suitable replacement.
Perhaps it’s boring to fly, but the 350 is league’s ahead of anything else out there currently flying! Anyway it’s probably best to have a wide expanse of options given that being dependent on a single manufacturer puts you in a dangerous spot as the MAX has shown.