So, No Flying Air Canada For Me.

I do identify myself as a man (that is a Gentleman) and my wife as a woman (that is a Lady--she is a real deal, unlike me being a Gentleman), so Air Canada for us becomes problematic: 

Air Canada flight staff will no longer greet passengers by calling them "ladies and gentlemen," the company announced, in an effort to include all genders. Instead of the gender-specific "ladies and gentlemen" (or French "mesdames et messieurs"), flight attendants are to address passengers as "everybody" or "tout le monde" instead.

Aw, isn't it lovely? So progressive and so...fabulous.

Earlier this year, US airlines represented by the Airlines for America trade group — including American, United, and Southwest — announced that they would add an "X" option for non-binary passengers on their boarding passes from June 2019. In March, United Airlines also became the first in the US to launch non-binary gender options for customers booking flights — it now offers the gender-neutral title "Mx" alongside "Mr" and "Ms."

So, I guess, airlines will offer an appropriate rigorous training for their "valued" employees because, as we all know, respecting "non-binary" citizenry is one of the most important tasks flight-crews must solve. In related news:

Boeing stock seesawed Monday after the board stripped CEO Dennis Muilenburg of his chairman position late Friday, as the aerospace giant tries to get the Boeing (BA) 737 Max back in service. The board said the decision would allow Muilenburg to "focus full time on running the company," according to the release. The Boeing 737 Max was grounded in March following a second crash. The crashes killed a total of 346 people. "I am fully supportive of the board's action. Our entire team is laser-focused on returning the 737 Max safely to service and delivering on the full breadth of our company's commitments," Muilenburg said in the release. Blackstone (BX) Senior Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Operations David Calhoun, who has been on Boeing's board since 2009, will serve as non-executive chairman. Prior to joining Blackstone, Calhoun worked at General Electric (GE) and was head of its aircraft engine division. The move comes as the return to service of the 737 Max keeps getting pushed back, weighing on Boeing stock. While Muilenburg has predicted it will start flying again in early Q4, which started this month, airlines have repeatedly delayed their timelines. Last week, 737 Max customers American Airlines (AAL) and United Airlines (UAL) removed the plane from their schedules through early to mid-January, following a similar move from Southwest (LUV).

Oh, that oughta solve all Boeing's problems (sarc). Especially when the guy who helped to run GE and Caterpillar (and Boeing) to incredible successes (you know--stock prices), evidently, has an accounting background from Virginia Tech. He even wrote a book on how to become really, really successful. Like really, really successful, especially when running a market research firm and then transferring those relevant (sarc) skills into aerospace industry with all this industry's Quality Management Systems, Quality Assurance procedures, metrology, engineering, specifications and instructions, testing of the materials and systems--you know, all those things they "teach" in the classes on "how to win". Indeed, what can possibly go wrong? After all, Mr. Calhoun should write a second volume of his book on "how companies win" where he will expand on the incredibly "successful" B-737 Max and how he, yes, personally, supervised Boeing's clumsy response, which, together with him personally pushing for B-737 Max, ensured absolutely that Boeing "will win". And it continues to win ever since two B-737 Max crushed killing 300+ people despite the fact that American pilots (forget those "others") warned about issues with the plane on many occasions prior to those tragedies. Hey, what do those pilots know? Same goes to Boeing's B-767 based refueling aircraft. Shareholders were happy and that is the only thing that matters, right? I hope they will arrive, eventually, to the right conclusions at Boeing to address the situation. I am all for real competition in this field, which, as we may learn from this all--exposes weaknesses immediately. I am against any monopoly in this field. In aerospace it is not a good idea.  

In general, one is forced, at this stage, viewing this avalanche of not very inspiring (to put it mildly) news from US real economy, reflect on the way true competence and, once legendary, American engineering prowess is being completely diluted with financialization of the whole economy into oblivion, where the only measure of quality becomes, such as a cancerous political correctness and institutionalization of mental abnormality in social life, in it being completely false,  an economic equivalency of "bottom line" and stock pricing. It is the road to hell.

Pot Calling The Kettle.

By now no one should be surprised with the trade wars waged by Trump Administration on anyone. In many respects Trump's approach to international relations and trade is reminiscent of chaotic convulsions of the seriously injured ER patient and should not be treated as thought-out strategy. As I stated not for once--there is none. So, yet again threats and sour grapes:

The US is floating the idea of slapping tariffs on $11bn (£8.4bn) worth of products from the European Union. The move, which would escalate trade tensions between the US and EU, is a retaliation to European aircraft subsidies after the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said that the subsidies have an adverse impact on the US. Late on Monday, the US Trade Representative (USTR) delivered a proposed list of goods that could be hit by the tariffs. The list include everything from cheese to salmon fillets, and wine to helicopters. The USTR said that the value of the products that are proposed to be hit by tariffs is subject to an arbitration at the WTO. It will take several months to come to a conclusion.

What this piece forgot to mention, of course, is a symptomatic US reaction, which seeks to mitigate the effect of 800-pound gorilla in the room--a major FUBAR by Boeing with 737 Max. It is all about Boeing and Airbus:

San Francisco (AFP) - The US on Monday threatened to impose tariff counter measures of up to $11.2 billion on a host of European products in response to subsidies received by aircraft maker Airbus. 

No matter how one wants to spin this whole situation but there is no doubt whatsoever about Airbus benefiting from 737Max situation which has been, as bad as it was with so many human lives lost in two crashes, exacerbated by inept behavior of Boeing's PR people who dragged the issue for too long to have a sensible recovery--instead of admitting problem with 737 Max and rushing to fix it with maximum publicity, Boeing got embroiled in the PR disaster which IS having serious ramifications for Boeing's main money-maker, no matter how one tries to spin it. This is not to speak of those proverbial "subsidies". It is just the matter of perception and of newspeak--Boeing is also "subsidized" by government contracts. Nothing is wrong with that. So this whole "subsidies" thing is nothing more than a PR BS for consumption of free trade fundamentalists. US accusing Airbus of subsidies is akin to pot calling the kettle (black). Boeing should recall its "win" over Airbus.

Needless to say, Boeing commercial aircraft are main, together with cars and semi-conductors, United States global hi-tech industrial export. It is also most prestigious and image-supporting article of US economic clout. Now it suffered a major blow and Trump decided to deal with the issue in the best traditions of New York real estate shyster. Obviously, global community does not operate on such principles and Washington is getting messages about that with increasing frequency. Enter Russia. 

Moscow (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart on Monday discussed a missile deal slammed by the US as well as closer military cooperation during a visit by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Moscow. The two sides must "strengthen cooperation in the military-technical sphere," Putin told Erdogan as they met in the Kremlin. "These regard first of all the completion of the contract to supply S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems to Turkey," he said. "There are other promising projects on the agenda related to the supply of modern Russian military products to Turkey," Putin added.

Could Russia offer Turkey SU-57 fighter? Possible. Erdogan says Turkey would love to have S-500 in the end. So, who knows what Putin and Erdogan discussed behind closed doors but it is clear that even S-400 can close skies over Turkey for any contingency, including Ankara or Istanbul being bombed by Turkey's very own allies from NATO. This issue, with Turkey's S-400 purchase, however is just one of many other gigantic irritants for the United States, be that Egypt's purchase of SU-35s, US sanctions, sure as hell, will follow, or India, apart from buying those pesky S-400, adding today additional batch of T-90 tanks, to already contracted 464 units (in Russian). So much for Russia being isolated. But that is the whole point: Trump and his advisers act as if the United States is an industrial powerhouse it used to be in the immediate post-WW II period. These United States do not exist anymore and are gone for good. Even the United States of 1990s are not here anymore. Trump may start with getting an accurate assessment of American economy, real economy that is, and figuring out how come that the United States is the largest importer of finished goods in the world--$2.1 trillion. 

But, of course, there is a political downside to all these trade wars--people around the world are not stupid and they see these convulsions, erratic behavior and threats from the US as a sign of weakness and they are absolutely correct. Tariffs and trade wars are not going to help the US out of her deep economic hole, but it seems that Trump doesn't understand this, as well as the process of the United States declining into geopolitical irrelevance in a face of the fait accompli of multi-polarity and Eurasia going her own way in development in which the United States has only two options: join or try to sabotage it and we all know where it is going so far. It may change but not till present US "elites" are in power. Do they even know where they are today economically and geopolitically? Some of them surely do know. But even those who know--they have no ability, intellect and passion to steer America in the right direction for the sake of majority of her people. And so the bullying, threatening, hand twisting, sanctioning continues and will continue with less and less effect. The main issue today is to prevent, once those in power in the US understand completely that their gig is up, a global war which the US may initiate as the last resort. I guess, and I only guess, that Putin didn't say the last word on newest weapons. Something tells me that the season of surprises is only at the very beginning.   

This Is Not Good.

WSJ reports:


Boeing Withheld Information on 737 Model, According to Safety Experts and Others 

This is more than just "not good", this is down right scary.

The automated stall-prevention system on Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 models -- intended to help cockpit crews avoid mistakenly raising a plane's nose dangerously high -- under unusual conditions can push it down unexpectedly and so strongly that flight crews can't pull it back up. Such a scenario, Boeing told airlines in a world-wide safety bulletin roughly a week after the accident, can result in a steep dive or crash -- even if pilots are manually flying the jetliner and don't expect flight-control computers to kick in. That warning came as a surprise to many pilots who fly the latest models for U.S carriers. Safety experts involved in and tracking the investigation said that at U.S. carriers, neither airline managers nor pilots had been told such a system had been added to the latest 737 variant -- and therefore aviators typically weren't prepared to cope with the possible risks."It's pretty asinine for them to put a system on an airplane and not tell the pilots who are operating the airplane, especially when it deals with flight controls," said Capt. Mike Michaelis, chairman of the safety committee for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents about 15,000 American Airlines pilots. "Why weren't they trained on it?"

Make no mistake--I am all for automation, where it is needed. But I am also, and primarily so, for high level of professional training of personnel which provides a set of fundamental skills allowing professional pilots, mariners, surgeons, what have you, to be independent of "technology" in critical situations while deciding when and how to engage it. We just saw another example of a loss of a situational awareness and of extremely low level of fundamental professional skills here:

At least in Norway no people got killed, in case of Indonesian Boeing every one on board died. Somebody at Boeing has to answer for this major FUBAR and higher-ups there at least may try to remind people who write all kinds of software for commercial aircraft that it is not a freaking video-game they are coding--people's safety is at stake. But that opens another can of worms altogether--technophilia taken to the extreme in a firm conviction, primarily among people who do not have required complex skills such as piloting, that machines can do everything for us. They can't, and they shouldn't. In the end, the Miracle on Hudson occurred primarily for the reasons of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and his crew's superb professional human skills under the conditions of almost complete failure of technology. In the end, I would be extremely apprehensive while being flown in the aircraft in which pilots are merely operators of the cockpit at the service of main on-board computer, or to be driven in pilot-less cars--another wet dream of office plankton who thinks that human lives can be described in Java or C++. 

Most of all, I  would be very, and I am, apprehensive of exclusion of a human professional from the decision loop in Combat Informational Control Systems (aka Battle Management) responsible for the use of sensors and weapons because in this case a Skynet scenario becomes not only possible but reasonably probable. In warfare, I am all for networks and AI but only under conditions of a human having his hand at the switch. I really hope that Boeing learns its (tragic) lesson because I like Boeing's aircraft but the idea that those could become simply uncontrollable pieces of metal with no ability to get them under control is, frankly, terrifying.