Boeing seems unable to keep up with its rival Airbus

livemint.com:

When Boeing was building a seemingly unassailable position in commercial aviation in the 1960s and 70s, passengers’ faith in its relentless focus on quality inspired the slogan “If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going." After the latest calamity to befall the company—the in-flight blowout of a 737 Max door plug of a plane operated by Alaska Airlines that fortunately wasn’t fatal, unlike the two crashes involving 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019— aviation needs a new catchphrase that encapsulates Boeing’s shattered safety reputation and the ascendance of its sole big rival. This flier suggests, “If it ain’t Airbus, the regular bus will do just fine." In the wake of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines disasters, I wrote that the Airbus-Boeing duopoly had become “extremely unbalanced." At this point, I’m running out of hyperbole to describe the starkly diverging fortunes of the two aircraft makers.

Notwithstanding a punishing pandemic and supplier difficulties that have slowed Airbus’ advance, on just about every metric the European firm is trouncing its US rival [whose CEO has reportedly admitted a “mistake" related to the Alaska Airlines incident]. Barring an unforced error, it’s hard to see Boeing catch up.

Airbus’s rise reminds me of the allegory of the tortoise and the hare. For a long time, investors were transfixed by Boeing’s superior financial performance which Airbus struggled to match.

The European company was formed via the merger of assorted national aerospace units, meaning Airbus’ factories were spread across several countries and governments were always interfering to ensure they weren’t disadvantaged. Though it enjoyed impressive sales success, thanks to innovations such as fly-by-wire, Airbus was forever engulfed