Even after all the trials and tribulations Boeing has gone through with its 737 MAX fleet, I still have a warm spot in my heart for many of its products. I’ve never been enamored of—or uneasy aboard—the 737 series, but the 727 and the 757 are at the top of my list for airliners I like to be ticketed on—the 727 for its paradigm-smashing three-engine configuration and tail-mounted boarding stair, and the 757 for its seemingly overpowered performance and commonality with the 767. I’ve always thought Boeing erred when it chose to develop the 737 instead of the seven-five. Alas, it’s almost impossible to even see a 727 in the wild these days, much less travel on one.
Of course, Boeing has been raked over the coals this year, thanks to the January 2024 blowout of a disabled emergency exit door aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9. No one was injured, thankfully, but the company’s reputation took a major hit. The smoke from that episode still hasn’t settled and for weeks afterward, every news outlet with internet access felt free to run breaking-news headlines whenever another Boeing stubbed its toe. Even Airbus got safety- and maintenance-related attention, but you had to read down through the story before you learned the aircraft type.
One of my favorite outcomes of this media feeding frenzy was discovery by some of the FAA’s service difficulty reports (SDRs), which we summarize each month in our Squawk Box department. Some general media outlets seemed to present some SDR database entries as breaking news, furthering the narrative that Boeing airplanes were shoddily made.
There’s no doubt the company is going through some things. For an April Fool’s prank, one wag even Photoshopped a 737 into a 797, falsely announcing a successor.
Whether the fallout will have any immediate impact on the ways Boeing produces its airplanes will remain to be seen. Unfortunately, it may take another high-visibility mishap coming to light before we’ll know—absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.
It’s all just one more example in the long-running failure of the general media to understand aviation. It’s also unclear if a deeper understanding by the media would be a good thing.
