Comment on Ideas coming down the track
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
New train technologies are less visible and spread less quickly than improvements to cars or planes.
The auto industry has literally done everything in its power to ensure that trains are an afterthought and don’t get enough ridership to make such improvements.
The air industry, basically just Boeing, is subsidized by the government through military contracts so that one is more of an apples to oranges comparison.
tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
How is the airline industry just Boeing? What an odd thing to say.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Sorry I guess I should have been clearer that this comment was regarding the US specifically. The auto industry in other countries has done similar things but has failed in Europe compared to the US in making everyone carbrained. And Boeing is basically the only major airframe manufacturer in the US.
Europe is an entirely different story on both fronts. Forgive me for not specifying.
tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
No need to apologize.
Anyway, US airlines can and do choose between Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, and Embraer. No single company holds them hostage. On the supply side, the Airbus factory in Mobile, Alabama employs more than 2000 workers. And of course Airbus has US suppliers in addition to this.
The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 3 days ago
Yes, the airlines aren’t being held hostage, no one said this.
Boeing has been subsidized for years and has generally been the only aircraft purchased by American airline companies. That was the claim and it’s true.
Sure they could buy Airbus or Embraer (and they do a lot more these days since Boeing has lost favor due to some fairly catastrophic crashes and basically stopped making the airplanes companies want), but historically they were much more expensive and “not American” (Airbus) or literally didn’t really exist as a serious choice in commercial air (Embraer). Bombardier hasn’t been in the commercial aircraft business at all since I think 2020, though the CRJ was a relatively common sight in the states for short flights until they stopped making it (I’m having trouble finding which airlines fly them though I didn’t look that hard).
Airbus didn’t have an American factory until 2016, and American Airlines, the airline with the most Airbus aircraft today, only started ordering them in 2011. Delta didn’t have any Airbus until the early 2000s when they bought out a company that did, and they still buy mostly Boeing. United has some Airbus these days too but the vast majority of their fleet and their entire historical fleet is Boeing, Lockheed (been out of commercial air for a long time), or McDonald Douglass (now Boeing).
Those are the current major airlines in the US, and even today they fly mostly Boeing, though that is changing when looking at current orders. There are a few more larger carriers such as Southwest, Alaska, Hawaiian, or Spirit, but many of them also fly mostly Boeing and I’ll let you do that research for yourself.
No company has anyone by hostage, but Boeing clearly has had the market in the US and it has been largely due to government subsidy in the form of “job creation” initiatives, military and space contract, and lax oversight.