It has been kind of shocking to see Boeing's decline in real time like this. My whole life I saw them as an unshakable example of U.S. engineering superiority. Reading articles from current and former employees, it sounds like the decline actually began decades ago. It took this long to raid the coffers, so to speak, of talent, good will, and QA redundancy. It is suggested that they are too big to fail, but it will be expensive to re-pad all that redundancy, and I'm not sure subsequent leaders will be willing to lose the next decade of profit in pursuit of regaining their engineering credentials. I think the true cost of this has not yet been realised in their stock price.
PaulRobinson · 43m ago
Complacency - particularly a sense of you being on top in the natural order of things - will kill you, one way or another. No empire has ever survived it from the Romans to, the British empire to, well, I guess Boeing. Business textbooks are rammed with stories of complacency gutting market-dominating corporates (IBM, Kodak, Xerox), and the big reckoning seems to be coming for the likes of Boeing, GM, Ford, and many more. In tech, the assumption that the new hot like OpenAI is going to win all seems far-fetched as the complacency is already there.
The interesting thing for me about this particular tale is the commercial genesis of Airbus and the incentives of the management team have led it to catch up despite Boeing have a 20-year head start.
When you're not totally absorbed by the share price, and instead you're trying to build a sustainable long-term business that can pay off decades (or generations), later, you get to make decisions that lead to a more sustainable and trusted business.
themafia · 28m ago
Competition keeps entities honest. Monopolies will kill you. In Boeing's case both figuratively for the business and literally for it's customers.
dude250711 · 2m ago
> In tech, the assumption that the new hot like OpenAI is going to win all seems far-fetched as the complacency is already there.
Surely, Google here is the cautionary tale? Though I guess it started with the cloud for them.
MaKey · 17m ago
Another recent example is Intel.
scrlk · 9m ago
Ironic, given that Andy Grove's motto was "Only the paranoid survive".
mojuba · 26m ago
Makes it even more impressive considering that the A320 is slightly more expensive.
jraby3 · 4m ago
Pricing on these planes is pretty complex. It's a stretch to say that airbus is unequivocally more expensive without comparing various options.
Source: my brother worked for Boeing in sales and has been in the industry 30 years.
duke_sam · 39m ago
It’s impressive that Airbus caught up with Boeing after a 20 year head start. It sounds like Airbus’s bet on the future paid off but the article reads more like a PR piece than a case for why the A320 out competed the 737.
Tuna-Fish · 24m ago
A320 and the 737 were designed in entirely different worlds.
The 737 was designed using light tables and slide rules, to use low-bypass turbofans and direct controls with avionics only on board to optionally aid the pilots.
The A320 was designed in CAD and using CFD, with full digital fly-by-wire, and designed from the start for high-bypass turbofans.
Both designs have been updated plenty since, but because the basic design is much more modern, the A320 is much more amenable to being updated. There are elements of the 737 design that still exist on every new MAX coming off the line that would completely doom the certification chances of any new design, but are still there because they got grandfathered in for 737.
The wonder is not that the A320 finally caught up in sales, it's that the 737 can still be legally sold.
rob74 · 28s ago
> There are elements of the 737 design that still exist on every new MAX coming off the line that would completely doom the certification chances of any new design, but are still there because they got grandfathered in for 737.
Not only that, but Boeing is actually limited in how much they can "modernize" the 737, because doing too much might exceed the limits of the 737's type certificate. This is the reason behind the current engine inlet overheating worries, which has led to an airworthiness directive for the 737 MAX (https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/737-max-awaits-engine-in...) and is also one of the reasons for the delay certifying the MAX 7 and MAX 10. This would be a complete non-issue for other planes, because all modern designs have a switch position that only turns on the engine anti-ice system when it's needed, but the 737 MAX can't have that because the 1967 737 didn't.
kortilla · 15m ago
> The wonder is not that the A320 finally caught up in sales, it's that the 737 can still be legally sold.
What’s wrong with the 737 design that it wouldn’t pass today as a new aircraft? (Ignoring the disaster that was the MAX.)
speedgoose · 10m ago
From my understanding, mostly based on Kerbal Space Program, the aircraft isn’t well balanced when equiped with modern engines.
So you have to constantly apply some controls to fly, done by software.
I love stupid car comparisons so imagine a car with a new engine that is more economical to run, but very heavy on the left so the car constantly want to turn left. But if you apply force to the steering wheel manually or the car does it for you with software, all good. Still a shit car though.
rob74 · 17m ago
Yeah, that was exactly my feeling too when I read that Airbus has "finally" caught up to Boeing. With that head start, catching up was not something that could have been expected (unless Boeing would have replaced the 737, which they arguably should have done years ago already, but that's a different story). Of course, if you look into the details, things get more complicated, since the 737 had an in-house narrowbody competitor with the 757 for some time - but Airbus now has the same, with the A220 competing with the smaller A320 family models (A318 and A319).
jaggs · 10m ago
In my country we have a saying - "Every dog has its day".
The interesting thing for me about this particular tale is the commercial genesis of Airbus and the incentives of the management team have led it to catch up despite Boeing have a 20-year head start.
When you're not totally absorbed by the share price, and instead you're trying to build a sustainable long-term business that can pay off decades (or generations), later, you get to make decisions that lead to a more sustainable and trusted business.
Surely, Google here is the cautionary tale? Though I guess it started with the cloud for them.
Source: my brother worked for Boeing in sales and has been in the industry 30 years.
The 737 was designed using light tables and slide rules, to use low-bypass turbofans and direct controls with avionics only on board to optionally aid the pilots.
The A320 was designed in CAD and using CFD, with full digital fly-by-wire, and designed from the start for high-bypass turbofans.
Both designs have been updated plenty since, but because the basic design is much more modern, the A320 is much more amenable to being updated. There are elements of the 737 design that still exist on every new MAX coming off the line that would completely doom the certification chances of any new design, but are still there because they got grandfathered in for 737.
The wonder is not that the A320 finally caught up in sales, it's that the 737 can still be legally sold.
Not only that, but Boeing is actually limited in how much they can "modernize" the 737, because doing too much might exceed the limits of the 737's type certificate. This is the reason behind the current engine inlet overheating worries, which has led to an airworthiness directive for the 737 MAX (https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/737-max-awaits-engine-in...) and is also one of the reasons for the delay certifying the MAX 7 and MAX 10. This would be a complete non-issue for other planes, because all modern designs have a switch position that only turns on the engine anti-ice system when it's needed, but the 737 MAX can't have that because the 1967 737 didn't.
What’s wrong with the 737 design that it wouldn’t pass today as a new aircraft? (Ignoring the disaster that was the MAX.)
So you have to constantly apply some controls to fly, done by software.
I love stupid car comparisons so imagine a car with a new engine that is more economical to run, but very heavy on the left so the car constantly want to turn left. But if you apply force to the steering wheel manually or the car does it for you with software, all good. Still a shit car though.