Airbus A 380 is rolling

In article ,
says...

Boeing may well be the market leader this year, on the
strength of the 787.



I find this very tenuous.
If Boeing does manage to slow the hemmorrage of market share this year, it
will be thanks to a traditional agreement with the Japanese, and not to any
purported strengths of a plane that does not exist, and that no one knows much
about, except that it has wavy lines on the floor instead of straight ones.
(Are these supposed to help drunken passengers navigate, or are they a
metaphor for Boeing's own management strategy?).

They year is young yet. Airbus is about to proceed with the most spectacular
rollout since the 747 - and I have not seen any billboards saying, "Would the
last one to leave Toulouse please turn out the lights . . ." The prestige and
media coverage of the event can only enhance their posture (unless of course
the rollout ends the way the initial A320 demonstration did)!

And Boeing, in their wavering wisdom, have chosen this moment to announce the
end of the 747 program. What stupidity! Not to end it, I mean - but to
announce it now - to say to all the asian carriers who use almost exclusively
jumbos "YES, we have NO ANSWER to Airbus's A380!" They have thus spent time
and money gold-plating the silver platter on which they deliver this lucrative
market to their competitor.

I'm American, and I would love to see Boeing at least maintain parity with
Airbus in deliveries, as well as maintaining their stature as a technological
flagship of American industry. Byt then, I went to University of Minnesota,
and I quickly learned the futility of rooting for any of their teams!

G Faris