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There was a shift in the aviation market that wasn't entirely straightforward to predict. Airbus bet that the market would continue with a hub-and-spoke model,

There was a shift in the aviation market that wasn't entirely straightforward to predict. Airbus bet that the market would continue with a hub-and-spoke model, with lots of regional jets providing connections to hub airports. Boeing bet that the market would shift towards point-to-point service, with direct flights between second-tier airports facilitated by mid-size jets with extended range. Boeing clearly made the right call, but there's an element of hindsight at play. Emirates, Etihad and Singapore have been very successful as pure hub-and-spoke airlines and there's still a vast amount of traffic going through the major hub airports. The lead time on new aircraft designs is immense - the A3XX project started in 1994 and took the first orders in 2000. Airbus made some strategic blunders and didn't respond quickly enough to market conditions, but in some respects they were just unlucky. Boeing's 747X project failed and they have struggled with sales for the 747-8, but they avoided heavy losses by re-using old IP rather than launching a completely new platform. Both manufacturers were caught off-guard by the events of 2008.

cryptonector 9y ago
I wonder if Boeing's execs arrived at their strategy by the appeal of being contrarian to Airbus' bet. Perhaps they felt they had no choice: with the jumbo market fractured they might never be able to profit from it, so why not develop the alternative and hope for the best? No doubt they had data and information from their contacts at the airlines and could sense the brightness of the point-to-point future, but having no future in splitting the jumbo market with Airbus must have been a big factor too.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  Boeing certainly have an advantage in terms of agility. Airbus is a messy conglomerate, formed from the merger of aerospace companies from France, Germany, Spain, the US and the UK. With so many corporate and governmental stakeholders, their projects tend to become bloated and overly complex, and it's difficult for them to react quickly to market conditions. The A380 project suffered severe delays, in large part because the design effort was spread between teams in four countries using different processes and software.

cryptonector 9y ago

I wonder if Boeing's execs arrived at their strategy by the appeal of being contrarian to Airbus' bet. Perhaps they felt they had no choice: with the jumbo market fractured they might never be able to profit from it, so why not develop the alternative and hope for the best? No doubt they had data and information from their contacts at the airlines and could sense the brightness of the point-to-point future, but having no future in splitting the jumbo market with Airbus must have been a big factor too.

jdietrich 9y ago
Boeing certainly have an advantage in terms of agility. Airbus is a messy conglomerate, formed from the merger of aerospace companies from France, Germany, Spain, the US and the UK. With so many corporate and governmental stakeholders, their projects tend to become bloated and overly complex, and it's difficult for them to react quickly to market conditions. The A380 project suffered severe delays, in large part because the design effort was spread between teams in four countries using different processes and software.