Why the grounding of the 737 MAX should lead us to question the future of airport infrastructure

When it comes to runway rehabilitation projects, we are perennially seeking the answer to economise, or otherwise value engineer our solution. In the realm of the whole-life cost analysis, the question that needs to be raised sooner or later is 'when will we no longer need a runway?'

A refinement too far

It is 15th December 1967 and the Boeing company in Seattle are celebrating the certification of the very first 737, an aircraft that would become its best-selling aircraft and usher in the era of low-cost air travel as we know it today. Southwest Airlines, Ryanair, EasyJet - none of them may have existed were it not for the 737. Fast forward nearly fifty years to 8th March 2017 and Boeing are once again heralding the arrival of the latest incarnation of the 737 family, the Max 8, with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) awarding it what's termed an 'amended type certificate'. The milestone clears the way for its entry into commercial service and ends a flight test campaign lasting just over a year. Draw your attention to that word - ‘amended'. It is significant in that this amendment represents the twelfth time the 737's original 1967 type certificate has been updated. So, what is the FAA's view on this practice?

“The FAA may amend a type certificate when the holder of the type certificate receives FAA approval to modify an aircraft design from its original design. An amended type certificate approves not only the modification, but also how that modification affects the original design.”

In a gross oversimplification of the situation, suppose I bought a Morris Mini-Minor on that same day in 1967 from a British Motor Company showroom and fifty years later I return to a BMW dealer driving out with a 2017 Mini Countryman. Now suppose I take out the owner's manual and the documentation is dated 1967 with additional chapters inserted to cover the improved features of every model since then. You'd probably raise an eyebrow. Sure, the two cars have that distinctive Mini look, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can claim that the original Mini is in anyway similar to the vehicles rolling off the production line today. So too for the 737. It is not the same aircraft. In a fine example of engineering progress, over many years Boeing devised incremental ways of improving its iconic airliner to make it more efficient, more comfortable and more versatile. But at the heart of the matter, each iteration was effectively deemed ‘just' another 737.

The concept of continuous improvement through marginal gains is not a new one. Irrespective of the controversies surrounding British cycling, at face value the turnaround in the sport's fortunes under the helm of David Brailsford was nothing short of exceptional. Ranked 17th in the world and facing funding cuts after the Atlanta Olympics, Brailsford guided the team to eight gold medals at the 2012 games in London and at the heart of his philosophy was the aggregation of marginal gains. The compounding of annual economic growth is no different yielding tremendous gains in efficiencies and output over many decades. Your savings account may yield significant returns over a lifetime through compound interest - one of the many reasons the billionaire investor Warren Buffet has been so successful for over six decades.

Continuous improvement through marginal gains - what could possibly be the downside? Yet in some industries, and for some products or services, that improvement tends to become asymptotic - no one will ever be able to run 100m in two seconds one should think! Let's take another example - the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. Now reaching its peak, the advances in technology are pushing the boundaries of what is physically possible. Speak with Rolls Royce or Pratt and Whitney, manufacturers of the latest turbofan engines used on the 787 Dreamliner and A320neo respectively, and you will hear them lament over production challenges and in-service reliability issues that have cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and claims.

In the case of the 737 MAX, the introduction of new engines required a workaround (with the aid of the now infamous MCAS system) to ensure the flying characteristics in certain circumstances remained within the boundaries needed to secure an amended type certificate. But at some point, polishing and polishing and polishing that beautifully gleaming sheet of metal will over time wear it down. In Boeing's case, persistently refining the 737 over many years by stretching it, re-designing the wing and mounting ever more powerful engines led to one 'refinement' too far. The result? Two separate instances where an unfortunate chain of events resulted in a tragic loss of life.

The disruptor

At some point in any product's development cycle, the law of diminishing returns takes hold and it takes an industry disruptor to start with a clean slate, beginning the cycle anew. One need only look at Tesla and their rapid advancement in electric vehicles, completely outpacing the competition. Only recently did the German car manufacturer Daimler announce they are ceasing research and development of petrol and diesel engine technology - proof if ever it was needed that the game is up for the internal combustion engine. What about the iPhone, itself once an industry disruptor, and its own gradual decline in sales? How many more refinements can you make to a touch screen device that takes photos and allows you to converse with family and friends? As with every piece of technology or form of transport over the ages, at some point the realisation sets in that incremental improvements can only go so far before a whole new approach must be taken.

And so, what of our own industry - airport infrastructure and development - and more specifically runway rehabilitation projects? When it comes to the airport operator, upgrading a runway is an instance of placing trust in a contractor, trusting him to deliver what was promised without affecting the single most important asset that drives that airport's business. Understandably it is a conservative space in which we operate. A runway rehabilitation is generally a once in a decade event - sometimes longer. Why adopt a cutting-edge approach when an incremental one will do? Each project takes a familiar path along the lines of "how much asphalt must be laid to delay the onset of reflective cracking and how can this be achieved at the most cost competitive price?" Engineers employ refined analytical methods, incorporate new bituminous products, reduce the overall amount of material and yet the same question remains at the end of each cycle. Just like the internal combustion engine and the 737, eventually a point will be reached where no further economical refinement of the design can take place. Herein lies the invitation to the industry disruptor.

The paradigm shift

The aviation sector's outlook is generally short to medium term and subject to adverse effects from economic or geo-political shocks. Forecasting is notoriously difficult. Airbus launched the A320 programme in 1984 on the business case for 800 aircraft. To say that forecast has been proven to be conservative 8,000 aircraft later is somewhat of an understatement. But technology is rapidly evolving and so too is the way we travel. The failure of the A380 and decline of the 747 has shown that the age of the ultra-large airliner is fading. Point-to-point travel is a growing trend and wide body aircraft are now sharing the skies with their narrow body counterparts in the sub nine-hour sector. The age of electrified air travel for short hops under 500 nautical miles is not in the too distant future. What of the advancements in Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft development, conventionally fueled or otherwise? Pay close attention there.

When it comes to runway rehabilitation projects, we are perennially seeking the answer to economise, or otherwise value engineer our solution. In the realm of the whole-life cost analysis, the question that needs to be raised sooner or later is 'when will we no longer need a runway?' The evidence for their eventual elimination for all but the major passenger and freight hubs is right in front of us: advancement in VTOL development, the approaching electrification of small short-haul and regional airliners, the rise of the narrow-body airliner on long haul routes. Everything is shrinking and drawing closer to what can be achieved with the capabilities of battery-powered technology and vertical flight. When the time is right, the industry disruptor may take the form of that forward-thinking airport entity that decides it will undertake its final major runway rehabilitation and optimise its asset until it is no longer required. So, while we continue to ask how can we put the least amount of asphalt on a runway until the next resurfacing cycle, perhaps the paradigm shift is trying to understand what is required to see the asset out until it is no longer necessary? An optimum overlay, piecemeal full-depth flexible reconstruction or perhaps a targeted combination of both? The time for considering this question may be approaching and sooner than we think.