A story a few days ago about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in The Economist pointed out:

“When The Onion starts making fun of your company’s problems, you’re in trouble. It means that those problems are well-known enough to be funny to a mass audience. That’s the sign of a badly damaged reputation.”

Indeed, the hilarious online news parody did cover the most recent delay in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner whose first commercial deliveries will commence in the first quarter of 2011 instead of the fourth quarter. My only comment is that The Economist is UK-based and, as a result, is pro-Airbus – translation – anti Boeing. Financially, Boeing is humming along these days with its reputation quite in tact (my bias, perhaps).

“CHICAGO—With the airline industry continuing to suffer under the ongoing recession, the Boeing Company was forced Monday to lay off Al Freedman, the only guy left at the corporation who knows how to keep wings from falling off planes. “We used to have a whole team of engineers who knew how to make the wings stay on, but those days are long gone,” Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr. said. “We’ll make it work, though. The wings are not necessarily the most important part of the plane, anyway.” McNerney added that at least they were able to save the job of the guy who knows how to prevent jet engines from exploding.“

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