> what I meant by more expensive was the new plane costs more than if they just kept making the old design through 2019 It's the opposite that happened here: t

> what I meant by more expensive was the new plane costs more than if they just kept making the old design through 2019 It's the opposite that happened here: the more consistent redesign was avoided and the software trick employed (and even kept hidden initially, according to some reports) to compensate for the change that was introduced. The new planes are anyway bought, it's Boeing who tried to pass their badly fixed old planes as "improved but the same." Had they not done that, it's Airbus who would have (rightly so, based on my impression of these two accidents) sold more of their new efficient planes instead.