2019年经济学人 航空航天业和波音(2)

 

Start with the airlines. Pressure on carriers to cut costs made the fuel-efficient max Boeing’s fastest-selling model ever. Around 5,000 have been ordered since its launch in 2011 and nearly 390 delivered. Southwest, an American carrier with 34 such planes, has cancelled thousands of flights. In July it revealed a $175m hit to pretax profits in the second quarter. American Airlines, which has scrapped¹ 115 or so flights a day, reckons that full-year profits will be $350m lower as a result. OAG, an airline- data firm, estimates that, globally, the grounding will cost airlines $4bn in sales by November. Many airline bosses would agree with Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, Europe’s second-biggest carrier with 135 maxes on order, who has told Boeing to “get their shit together”.

从航空公司开始。航空公司削减成本的压力使节油的 max Boeing 成为有史以来销售最快的机型。自2011年推出以来，已经订购了大约5000台，交付了近390台。拥有34架这样飞机的美国西南航空公司已经取消了数千次航班。美国航空公司已经取消了每天大约115次航班，预计全年利润将因此减少3.5亿美元。航空数据公司OAG估计，到11月，全球停飞将使航空公司的销售额减少40亿美元。欧洲第二大航空公司瑞安航空的首席执行官迈克尔?奥利里曾告诉波音“振作起来”，许多航空公司老板都会同意他的观点。

Some airlines have put the plane back in their schedules for November, on the assumption that once Boeing submits fixes to the faulty software in September, America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its counterparts in other countries will allow a return to service before the end of the year. This looks optimistic. Even if regulators approved the new software, it would take six to eight weeks to get planes out of storage and in the air. And as Jose Caiado of Credit Suisse, a bank, points out, it is unclear if pilots require retraining in flight simulators, adding more delays. Southwest, which aims to get the max in the air by January, seems to admit as much.

一些航空公司已经把这架飞机重新列入了11月的计划，他们的假设是，一旦波音公司在9月份提交了针对这一缺陷软件的修复方案，美国联邦航空管理局及其在其他国家的同行将允许在今年年底前恢复服务。这看起来很乐观。即使监管机构批准了这款新软件，也需要六到八周的时间才能让飞机离开存储地。瑞士信贷银行的约瑟·卡亚多指出，目前还不清楚飞行员是否需要在飞行模拟器上进行再培训，这增加了更多的延误。西南航空的目标是在明年1月让 max 重返天空，该公司似乎也承认了这一点。

In the meantime, airlines are plugging gaps with other planes. Southwest is retiring seven fewer older, thirstier 737s from its fleet this year than it originally planned. United Airlines is pressing into service wide-bodied jets, which are costlier² to run than single-aisle jets like the 737 and so generally reserved for long-haul routes.

与此同时，航空公司正在填补与其他飞机的差距。西南航空今年将比原计划少退役7架更老、更费油的737飞机。联合航空正在大力推广服务用宽体客机，这类飞机的运营成本高于737等单通道客机，因此通常只用于长途航线。

1 scrapped   

废弃(scrap的过去式与过去分词)； 打架

参考例句：

• This machine is so old that it will soon have to be scrapped. 这架机器太旧，快报废了。
• It had been thought that passport controls would be scrapped. 人们曾认为会放开护照管制。

2 costlier   

adj.昂贵的( costly的比较级 )；代价高的；引起困难的；造成损失的

参考例句：

• Alligator skin is five times more costlier than leather. 鳄鱼皮比通常的皮革要贵5倍。 来自互联网
• Disagreements among creditors can be costlier still. 债权人之间的分歧会加大重组的费用。 来自互联网