[Issue 105] What did Boeing know?
Last week the CEO of Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg, spent two days in DC at hearings about the company's gross negligence in ensuring the safety of its 737 MAX plane.
I started to write this issue of the newsletter shortly afterward but life got the best of me, so I decided to pick the topic back up again this week as it is still critically important.
In following everything closely, I couldn't stop thinking about this photo of the victims' families holding images of their loved ones:
In the photo, Muilenburg is looking back at the row of faces and pictures behind him. They were a devastating reminder of the 346 people that Boeing failed.
And while he did share a solid apology for the decisions he and other executives made, I am blown away by how much the company knew before the crashes.
Here's a quick rundown:
In December 2015 an employee raised concerns about the vulnerabilities of the MCAS system and the risk related to the failure of one sensor. This ultimately proved to be the cause of both crashes.
November 2016 the chief technical pilot working on the Max, Mark Forkner, sent a message to a coworker saying he had “unknowingly” lied to the F.A.A. and that the system was “running rampant” in the flight simulator.
January 2017 that same pilot emailed the FAA asking them to remove any mention of MCAS from pilot training materials.
In June 2018 a Boeing employee told the general manager 737 Program "I have some safety concerns that I need to share with you. Our workforce is exhausted. Employees are fatigued from having to work at a very high pace for an extended period of time. Fatigued employees make mistakes... For the first time in my life, I am sorry to say that I am hesitant about putting my family on a Boeing airplane."
June 2018, Boeing employees noted that if pilots took more than 10 seconds (a slow reaction time for pilots apparently) to respond, it could be catastrophic. And since pilots were never made aware of how to respond to the system during a malfunction, it turned out to be catastrophic.
As Boeing and regulators now focus on addressing safety concerns, commercial airlines continue to ground the plane. But it's important to recall that the 737 Max is still new and many airlines placed huge orders for the plane, so it's highly likely that many will be in the air in 2020.
So now the question everyone seems to be asking is whether customers will be willing to fly on the 737 again.
What are companies planning to do?
An American Airlines' spokesperson says, "We'll be open and honest with our customers that they're flying on a Max." Anyone booking will be able to see "Boeing 737 Max 8 Passenger" under flight times.
United Airlines says they'll repeatedly let customers know throughout every step between booking and boarding the flight. They will even rebook without penalty for those who want out.
Southwest Airlines, the only other U.S. airline to have purchased the 737 Max, also says they'll be completely open and transparent with passengers.
So the question remains, where do we go from here with Boeing? When I think of "too big to fail," Boeing certainly falls within that category for me. The only other airplane manufacturer that can compete with Boeing is Europe's Airbus.
Without digging into the boring details of this highly competitive and complex industry, I literally don't know how you truly fix Boeing's culture or even punish them effectively when they operate within a duopoly.
Yes, we technically get to choose what planes we fly on, but the data shows that 65% of us never check. And realistically, even if we do check, how many of us are making decisions about our flights based on an aircraft—especially when we might be dependent on air travel for work or personal reasons.
The issues around safety that have bubbled up from within Boeing are egregious and are likely just the tip of the iceberg. It leaves me wondering what we don't yet know.
And while it will definitely take longer than the next two months of investigation by regulators to regain trust, I don't know where we go from here.
I fear that Boeing will get a financial slap on the wrist and everything will just go back to business as usual. Even worse, because it would take several years to place and receive an order for new planes with Airbus, Boeing will continue to profit from sales of planes despite the lack of trust.
So what do we do—other than pray that there are no future casualties?
Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.
️❤️️,
Nikita
P.S. For a deeper dive, I highly recommend this episode of the New York Times' Daily podcast.
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Earlier this year McDonalds tested out the idea of a plastic-free store in Berlin as a way to get consumer feedback on how to best prepare for the EU's 2021 ban on single-plastic. Several items were a hit (edible containers) and others were a flop (unsurprisingly, paper straws). The company plans on doing several more pop ups, with the next one in Canada.
Read more here.
Enjoy the extra long list of headlines, with two weeks worth of goodies!
The Firing Of McDonald's CEO Wont Solve The Chain's Sexual Harassment Problem. On Friday, the CEO of McDonald's, Stephen Easterbrook, was fired after a relationship with an employee came to light. His separation agreement shows that he will get 6.5 months of severance, and he has signed a confidentiality agreement. However, McDonald's is being criticized for this move as it seems like an empty gesture due to McDonald's history with sexual harassment amongst their hourly workers. A spokesperson for the Fight for $15 movement within McDonalds has said that "It's clear McDonald's culture is rotten from top to bottom. McDonald's needs to sit down with worker-survivors and put them at the center of any solution." // VOX
John Legend Wants To Improve Job Opportunities For People With Criminal Backgrounds. This article is about John Legend's partnership with philanthropic venture fund New Profit and Legend's own criminal justice reform initiative, FreeAmerica. Legend has announced the second group of participants in the program Unlocked Futures, which is a 14 month accelerator program for social entrepreneurs who have been formerly incarcerated. The program is financially supported by Bank of America. // FORBES
WeWork's Ousted C.E.O Adam Neumann Is Accused of Pregnancy Discrimination. This article details the experience of women who became pregnant while working at WeWork. The article uses former chief of staff Medina Bardhi's experiences, detailing how she was reluctant to share the news with her boss until she had no choice, and how she could no longer take business trips with her boss because of his habit of smoking marijuana on chartered flights in an enclosed cabin. Furthermore, Neumann referred to her maternity leave as "vacation" and "retirement". Bardhi also experienced discrimination from other employees within the company, and other women have also filed lawsuits accusing WeWork of gender discrimination. // NY TIMES
Over 1,000 Google Employees Call On Company To Release Climate Plan. Employees at Google have been circulating an open letter that calls on their company to commit to a plan that addresses the "urgency of the global climate crisis and its disproportionate harm to marginalized people". Specifically, the letter calls on Google to commit to getting to zero emissions by 2030 and to no longer agree to contracts that "enable or accelerate the extraction of fossil fuels." The open letter has gotten 1,100 signatures so far. // THE HILL
Buffalo Wild Wings Faces Heat From Racist Incident. In Naperville, Illinois at a Buffalo Wild Wings, a mixed race group of parents, coaches, and children from two different youth basketball teams were asked to move to a different table after a "regular" customer complained to employees about not wanting to sit next to black people. Since this terrible event, the two employees have been fired, and the customer who complained is banned for life from all Buffalo Wild Wings. The parent company also plans on speeding up sensitivity training in wake of the incident. // WSJ
A lil something to make you smile.
Lyft Makes All Rides Carbon Neutral, Buts That’s Only The Beginning. Lyft began making all the rides on their platform carbon neutral through a carbon purchase project last year, and have offset over a million tons of carbon, however Lyft says this is only the start of their long term journey to decarbonize all their operations. The founders John Zimmer and Logan Green have more plans to better the industry as well, like providing electric vehicles for their drivers to rent, as well as expanding municipal public transit agencies. // TRIPLE PUNDIT
Instagram Is Banning Cartoons And Memes That Promote Self-Harm and Suicide. The father of a 14 year old girl who killed herself after viewing Instagram posts promoting self-harm and suicide in 2017 has long campaigned for Instagram and other social media giants to take charge and change their policies about this kind of content. Because of his work, earlier in the year Instagram banned any images of self-harm or suicide on the platform, but they are now taking it up another step and banning any images, memes, or cartoons that promote or depict self-harm or suicide. // FAST COMPANY
Juul Shipped At Least A Million Contaminated Pods, New Lawsuit Says. A former Juul executive, Siddharth Breja, has filed a lawsuit alleging that the company knowingly sent out a shipment of 1M contaminated Juul pods earlier in the year without telling customers, or issuing a recall. In the lawsuit, Breja details other instances where he tried to report the issues internally and was then ultimately fired for doing so. Juul has denied the claims. // BUZZFEED
It’s Time To Talk About The Mental Health Effects Of Student Loan Debt. This article discusses how student loan debt affects people at their jobs, and how policies like loan forgiveness or interest rate caps can help reform educational finance and benefit people in life and in work. // QUARTZ
After Deaths, Amazon Lands On List Of Most Dangerous Employers. In September at an Amazon warehouse, an employee named Billy Foister suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground, and it took 20 minutes before any coworkers or management noticed and called an ambulance, and he subsequently died. However, a few days before his heart attack when he put an item in the wrong box, his managers noticed within two minutes and he was reprimanded, showing Amazon’s intense work pace. This sadly isn't the first instance of Amazon workers dying from serious injuries while on the job, and even more have reported mental health issues since taking the job. Foister’s death is just the latest in a pattern of an unsafe workplace at Amazon, while Amazon continues to claim that these deaths are tied to “personal medical issues”. // Futurism
Captured By Coal. This collection of articles by Grist and The Texas Tribune are about how coal companies in Texas are required by law to restore land that was used for coal mining, however, as the coal industry begins to fail, mining companies are thinking of new ways to work around the law and not restore the land they mine on. This leads to thousands of acres of potentially contaminated ground, and Texas could be helping them save millions in the process. // GRIST
This week's headlines were curated by ABL's intern, Lora.
"I would walk before I would get on a 737 Max."
- Senator Jon Tester (D-MT)