Re: Pilot training
I'm not sure this will now be as much of a problem. Anyone who wants to cancel their contract already had that opportunity. But the alternative is still the A320 Neo, which means re-training all your mechanics and possibly re-doing your whole logistics system. Which is worse.
I'm sure it'll be used to screw more financial sweeties out of Boeing. But remmeber that the airlines aren't running close to full capacity, so training pilots isn't the stretch that it would have been even 9 months ago. So I'm sure if Boeing pay up for things like simulator time, it'll be only a bit financially painful for them to sort. I presume it's more of a problem if you're running a mixed fleet of old 737s and new MAXes - but then with MCAS de-fanged like this will it have to be a new type certfification, or just some mandatory training?
That still seems the big question to me. If MCAS can be safely made so much less powerful now, how come Boeing felt they had to beef it up so much in the original test flying program? Because they've still go to fix the problem of the plane climbing due to the aerofoil effects of the bigger engines.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
