波音梦想飞机注定有此一劫

    将飞机制造业务外包已经成为一种行业趋势。过去几年里，建造飞机变得更像拼拼图，而不是由一家公司从无到有进行生产。到了现在，这些拼图里更是包含着非常复杂的电子元件。咨询机构蒂尔集团（Teal Group）的副总裁理查德•阿布拉菲亚说：“我最喜欢的例子就是原来做刹车的那帮人，他们现在做的是‘飞机制动管理系统’。”

    各大公司引入了新技术之后，生产飞机变得更加复杂了。联邦航空管理局负责人迈克尔•赫尔塔在2012年的一次演讲中说：“联邦航空管理局在对787客机进行技术认证的过程中记录的技术工作时间长达20万小时。而且我们的运输飞机理事会（Transport Airplane Directorate）还制定了15项特殊条款——也就是对新设计的监管条款，以解决现有条款无法充分覆盖的问题。”换句话说，梦想飞机采用的技术太新奇了，以至于飞机一边研发，监管机构要一边为它制定法规。

    波音公司的高管一度认为，787客机的研发和生产可以比实际上早一点完成。卡奥指出：“他们知道，提高公司股价最好的方法就是设定目标，然后实现目标。波音设定了一个保守的目标，却还是没能实现这个目标。”

    就目前而言，波音787梦想飞机的故障虽然让许多人感到愤怒，但它们或许还不至于葬送了梦想飞机。每家航空公司都在寻找降低燃油价格风险敞口的办法，而波音是唯一两家有能力生产燃油经济型客机的公司中的一家。除此之外没人能做到这一点。

    那么，波音现在应该做些什么？摩根大通公司（JP Morgan）1月17日的一份分析报告中写道：“过去两周以来，我们认为787客机的电池故障是非常严重的问题。但我们相信，最有可能的结果是，波音找到问题根源，修复了故障，问题将在下几周或最多几个月内得到彻底解决。”

    目前，全球各地的航空公司已经预订了800多架梦想飞机。按每架飞机约2亿美元计算，它意味着将有大量现金流向波音和它的投资者。作为乘客来讲，当他们登上一架拉风的新飞机时，肯定不希望飞机的电池突然冒烟。然而现实情况与此相反，令人不安。波音必须把当前遇到的问题放在大环境下考虑，一劳永逸地解决它。莱维克公司危机公关顾问兼执行副总裁基尼•格拉保斯基说：“他们正处在一个不寻常的局面，因为现在出现了一种不寻常的对于坐飞机的恐惧。正因为有这种不寻常的恐惧，必须要有不寻常的努力去解决这个问题。”

    无论多少光环，也不能掩盖一架飞机的瑕疵。投资者们最终会忘记飞机下线时间的推迟——只要推迟的时间不长。大多数乘客也会忘记飞机驾驶舱里冒出的烟雾——只要它永远不会再次发生。

    波音应该能够安然度过这次危机，除非梦想飞机再次出现故障，或者有人发现它存在重大缺陷。阿布拉菲亚说：“如果燃油价格下降，融资成本上涨，波音才会出现问题。”但现在，各大航空公司需要省油的新飞机，而波音卖的就是这样的飞机。梦想飞机的面世过程虽然有些混乱，甚至有点吓人，但它似乎已经是目前市场能提供的最好的飞机了。

    译者：朴成奎

    Outsourcing construction is an industry trend. Over the years, building an aircraft has become more about assembling a puzzle than building a product from scratch. And those puzzle pieces have complicated digital components, these days. "My favorite example is that the guys who make brakes now do the 'aircraft stop management system,'" says Richard Aboulafia, vice president of consulting firm Teal Group.

    Building a plane becomes even more complicated when companies introduce novel technology. "The FAA logged 200,000 hours of technical work on the 787 type certification," said Federal Aviation Administration administrator Michael Huerta in a 2012 speech touting the Dreamliner. "And our Transport Airplane Directorate developed 15 special conditions -- essentially new design regulations to address innovations that existing rules don't fully cover." In other words, the Dreamliner has features so fancy that regulators had to write rules as the aircraft was being developed.

    Boeing executives thought they could have wrapped up the Dreamliner much sooner. "They know that the best way to increase a share price is to set the targets and hit them," Chao says. "And they set those conservatively, and they still can't hit them."

    As of now, those misses have ticked people off, but they probably haven't sunk the Dreamliner. Every airline is looking for ways to decrease exposure to unpredictable fuel prices, and Boeing is one of the two companies that can make new fuel-efficient commercial models. No one else can do it.

    What should Boeing do now? "We take the battery failures on the 787 over the past two weeks very seriously," says a January 17 JP Morgan analyst report. "But we believe the most likely outcome is that Boeing identifies and fixes the problem and we move past this issue over the next several weeks or months at most."

    Airlines all over the world have collectively ordered more than 800 Dreamliners. At roughly $200 million per plane, that's a lot of potential cash coming to Boeing and its investors.

    Passengers, reasonably, expect that when they board a cool new plane the battery will not combust. Evidence to the contrary is unnerving. Boeing needs to put its current problems in context and then fix them for good. "They're in an unusual, if not unique, position because there's an inordinate fear of flying," says Gene Grabowski, crisis communications consultant and executive vice president at Levick. "Because there's an inordinate fear, there has to be an inordinate effort to put things into context."

    No amount of gloss will cover a defective plane. But investors will forgive a rollout delay, if it's short, and (most) passengers will forgive smoke in the cockpit if it never happens again.

    Barring another glitch or the discovery that the Dreamliners are fundamentally flawed, Boeing should be fine. "If fuel prices drop and financing costs rise, then you've got trouble," says Aboulafia. But for now, buyers want new fuel-efficient planes and Boeing has them. Releasing the Dreamliner has been a messy, clunky, and sometimes terrifying process. But it looks like it's the best the market can provide.