Boeing 737 places safety first

The 737 family is one of the safest commercial airlines in operation

As with all incidents and accidents of commercial airliners, interest always heightens in the type of jet involved and whether it was safe to fly.
Since the dawn of the modern jet era which is largely signified by the entry into service of the legendary Boeing 707, air transport has grown far rapidly than anyone could have imagined. At the same time, the growth in air transport safety has, in my view, been growing at a much faster rate.

So, it comes as no surprise that the current Boeing 737 Next Generation family in operation today employs some of the most radically advanced technologies and safety systems.
Every three seconds, somewhere in the world, there is a 737 taking off. Yes, every three seconds. At any one moment in a 24-hour period, there are on average some 1,300 Boeing 737s flying. That's a lot of 737s.
While it would take forever to document every incident involving the 737 family, the only aspect to keep in mind is that the 737 is one of the safest airplanes you can hope to fly on.
Test programmes
This is why flight test programmes are designed to evaluate and test airplanes beyond what they would ever face in service.
Boeing's 737 Next Generation family has been a massive seller, with orders combined for the 737-600, 737-700, 737-800, 737-900, 737-900ER and other sub-variants totalling well over 7,100 units to date.
Analysis by Boeing shows that the hull loss rate of the 737 Next Generation family is just 0.26 out of 1.74 million departures - the lowest rate of any of the 737 family, which entered service in February 1968.
Back in 2004, the 737 production rate was around 17 airplanes a month. Today, that rate stands at 42 airplanes a month. By 2017, the rate jumps up to 47 a month. In 2018, the 737 production rate will jump again to 52 airplanes a month and in 2019, that rate will top out at 57 airplanes a month.
These record-breaking jumps in deliveries are fed on the back of a rapidly expanding air travel market which has seen the proliferation and massive growth in low-cost airlines wanting new fuel-efficient jets to support their network development.
Evolution
While oil prices have tumbled to around $40 a barrel, the evolution of the 737 family in the 737 Max will further refine its capabilities to fly further and at a much lower cost than the current Next Generation 737 family.
This is why airlines like flydubai have chosen to stick with the 737 Max for their future fleet needs rather than swap to competing models.
The same can be said for other bellwether airlines such as Ryanair and Southwest Airlines, both of whom are big customers of the Next Generation 737 as well as 737 Max.
There are too many big 737 customers to list. Many of the major leasing firms such as Gecas, BOC Aviation, AerCap and ALC all readily invest in the 737 for a plethora of reasons.
It has the best dispatch reliability rate of any airplane in history at over 99.7 per cent - a rate that the competing Airbus A320 family has never matched. It has the highest residual value on the used and second-hand market. It has the world's most reliable engine provider in CFM International, backed by millions of flight hours before engines go in for overhaul or maintenance.
It has lower direct and cash operating costs than the competing A320s and sports more range, allowing airlines to deploy the type on an array of short, medium and longer range routes where demand doesn't warrant the use of a more costlier widebodied jet. Airlines and lessors such as GOL, Norwegian, Southwest, United, Turkish Airlines, flydubai, Ryanair, China Eastern, Qantas, AeroMexico, Jet Airways, Alafco, CIT Leasing, Alaska Airlines, Xiamen Airlines and countless others all rely on the 737 for the core of their business.
Bright future
And with over 3,000 firm orders for the 737 Max 7, 737 Max 8 and 737 Max 9, Boeing's future with the 737 family has never looked brighter.
The 737 Max has become its fastest selling airplane and when you consider that more than half of existing 737 customers haven't even started to place orders for their existing fleets, there is a very high probability that these customers will continue their operations with the 737 Max in the same vein that others have done.
The first of the new 737 Max family members, the 737 Max 8, first took to the skies on January 29, 2016. Entry into service is planned for the first half of 2017.
As it stands, the 737 Max 8, powered exclusively by CFM International's Leap-1B engine, there is a good chance that the swift pace of flight testing could see service entry happen sooner than that.
The Leap-1B engine has already demonstrated its 15 per cent fuel efficiency over the existing CFM56-7BE engine that powers today's Next Generation 737 family. To that end, the efficiency of the 737 Max is not in question.
Neither then is its safety in question because we know that like all aerospace industry manufacturers, Boeing stops at nothing to ensure safety is paramount in all that it builds. And the 737 family, Next Generation or Max, both come as standard with safety first before all else.
The writer is chief analyst at Strategic Aero Research. Views expressed are his own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy.