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