Straighten up and fly right, Boeing. 

After two fatal crashes in the past five years and the recent Alaska Airlines jet door incident, the Federal Aviation Administration said Boeing has three months to address quality-control issues.

Cause for Concern

In October 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 departed from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Indonesia. After just 13 minutes, it crashed into the Java Sea because of faulty flight-control software, killing all 189 people on board. Only a few months later, in March 2019, a similar fate befell Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. And just at the start of this year, a cabin panel on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 blew out at 16,000 feet because of missing bolts. 

The common thread among all three tragic incidents — Boeing’s 737 MAX jet:

• This week, the FAA said it expects Boeing to provide a comprehensive action plan within 90 days to ensure further incidents don’t occur. Boeing has agreed to develop the plan. Certain 737 MAX 9 jets were grounded following the Alaska Airlines incident, but the hold was lifted at the end of January. However, the FAA has halted the expansion of the company’s 737 MAX production until further notice. 
• The FAA deadline follows a report conducted by a separate panel of government and aviation experts. The report, which includes 53 recommendations, found a disconnect between Boeing’s senior management and other members of the organization on safety culture. It said some employees might hesitate to report safety concerns out of fear of retaliation.

Boeing has been called out before for lapses in safety management. In 2019, The New York Times found evidence of debris left on planes and pressure on employees to not report violations at a 787 Dreamliner facility in South Carolina.

Sky Duopoly: While Brazil-based Embraer and China’s Comac technically exist, the commercial jet industry is far from diverse. Boeing and Airbus account for pretty much all of the market, so if either of them is grappling with serious safety issues, grounded flights, and production halts, that’s a major problem for the air travel sector. And airlines can’t just switch to Airbus in the interim — securing an order and then actually receiving planes can take months if not years. Right now, Airbus’ production for many of its planes is completely booked for the next four to six years. Magellan circumnavigated the world in a boat in less time.

If the video game job market were a sound, it’d be that sad noise Pac-Man makes when he dies.

This week, two major gaming companies slashed jobs: Sony cut 8% of its global PlayStation workforce, while EA cut 5% of its staff and announced it was canceling a Star Wars game. The gaming industry has seen a brutal 12 months of layoffs with pretty much every gaming company announcing job cuts — and it may not have any lives left.

Press F to Pay Respects

The last few years were a shock to the system for many tech workers, with rounds of cuts becoming far more normalized in an industry that really hadn’t seen mass layoffs before. But while overall tech layoffs have ebbed a bit, the games industry — including big companies with deep pockets — continues to hemorrhage workers.

“While the unfortunate reality is that periods of growth and shrinkage are cyclical to many industries, the scale of job losses in games last year and this year is worsened due to circumstances unique to the industry,” Tom Wijman, lead analyst at games industry analytics company Newzoo, told The Daily Upside. One major reason is pandemic-induced trends snapping back in the industry’s face:

• “During the pandemic, gaming engagement and spending reached all-time highs,” Wijman said. That led to a flood of projects being greenlit — but games take years to develop, and by the time they were ready, people weren’t quite as glued to their consoles as they had been when they were feverishly trying to repay their loans to Tom Nook. 
• “Until recently, many of these projects remained in development, but as engagement has continued to decline, many may be considered unviable,” Wijman said. He expects more game cancellations, which normally bring more layoffs.

Out of Levels: Wijman said shedding workers after finishing a game was fairly normal for companies, but those workers normally had lots of open roles they could pursue elsewhere. “The difference between then and now is that all companies seem to be downsizing,” he said. “The games industry has seen double-digit growth since (at least) 2012. There hasn’t been a necessity to downsize for that amount of time, at least, not industrywide. Now that there is this necessity, that will make more impact,” he added.

The box office this year has been drier than a desert dune. Thankfully, “Dune 2” is here to save the day.

The sci-fi sequel, based on the iconic 1965 Frank Herbert novel, hits theaters this weekend, marking Hollywood’s first major tentpole release of the year. While the film hails from Warner Bros. Discovery, the entire industry is hoping for a splash.

The Holdovers

The theater business is still dealing with a hangover brought on by last year’s dual talent strikes. In fact, “Dune 2” was originally slated to hit theaters last October, before being pushed to this spring to guarantee its A-list cast of then-striking actors could fully hit the press circuit to promote the film.

Born out of necessity, the decision may turn out to be a much-needed boost at the box office this year:

• Warner Bros. is projecting a slightly modest $65 million opening weekend, but other analysts see the film drawing as much as $80 million, thanks to its release on premium screens like IMAX — a perk that helped fuel “Oppenheimer” to nearly $1 billion in revenue last summer.
• Overall, the domestic box office has generated just $866 million in ticket sales this year through last weekend, according to Comscore data, an 18% dropoff from the same period a year ago. No film has crossed the $100 million mark so far this year, either.

Let’s All Go to the Lobby: While the first two months of 2024 have been rough, AMC Entertainment is at least riding high — or less low than usual — off the final three months of last year. On Wednesday, the oft-beleaguered theater chain said its Q4 revenue rose 11% to $1.1 billion, beating analyst estimates, and it only lost $182 million, narrower than last year’s loss of $287 million. In a call with the company’s investors/memestock holders, CEO Adam Aron noted the much-welcomed impact of two films last quarter: “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé.” As usual, the queens of pop remain undefeated.