Boeing 7E7 Announcement

And if the A380 is profitably successful, I'm sure Boeing could rush-produce
a stretched 747 (main body and/or upper deck) in a fraction of the time it
took AI to develop the A380 from scratch.

Not really. The stretch 747 was to have cost billions. But the real
issue is that there is no market for two super-sized aircraft. The 380
won't kill the 747, though it will certainly make it much less
profitable for Boeing. But a Super 747 and a 380 would kill both
companies.

The only thing Boeing hoped to do with the Super 747 was to scare
Airbus into canceling the 380. That failed, and Boeing backed down. It
is a private company and it has a responsibility to its workers and
stockholders not to commit suicide. Airbus is essentially bankrolled
by governments, so it can afford vanity projects, just as Britain and
France afforded the Concorde.

Boeing is in a very tough position. Because Airbus came along later,
its planes are more modern. Boeing can only play catchup with projects
like the 7E7/787, and at the end of the day it will have the more
modern fleet. But as long as the 737 is the airlines' cash cow, it
still won't have the cockpit similarity across its entire fleet that
Airbus has.

This was one case where being first mover proved in the long run to be
a bit of a disadvantage.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

And if the A380 is profitably successful, I'm sure Boeing could
rush-produce
a stretched 747 (main body and/or upper deck) in a fraction of the time
it
took AI to develop the A380 from scratch.

Not really. The stretch 747 was to have cost billions. But the real
issue is that there is no market for two super-sized aircraft.

There is no way to just stretch the 747, as the wing is at about the max
size for cable driven controls.

On or about Thu, 18 Dec 2003 06:04:41 -0500, Cub Driver
allegedly uttered:

The only thing Boeing hoped to do with the Super 747 was to scare
Airbus into canceling the 380. That failed, and Boeing backed down. It
is a private company and it has a responsibility to its workers and
stockholders not to commit suicide. Airbus is essentially bankrolled
by governments, so it can afford vanity projects, just as Britain and
France afforded the Concorde.

To be fair, Airbus isn't bankrolled by the governments anymore. The
most that has happened are loans to Airbus, which have been paid back
with significant gains. The same thing happens when Boeing gets tax
breaks for new aircraft sites (like the 7E7), except they don't get
paid back.

---
Peter Kemp

Life is short - Drink Faster

With me, Boeing has already won. I'd never fly a jumbo jet if there
was a twin-aisle widebody available, whether it's a 747 or a NBT..

Why not?

I used to fly 747s once a winter when I skied in Europe, and on
several other transAtlantic and transPacific trips (the worse was New
York to Seoul in one jump and just two meals). Getting off the plane
is almost as bad as getting off a passenger liner in the 1950s.

Even in the 1970s I preferred the Lockheed 1011 as a more humane
carcass-carrier. I was tickled when 767s (I do have this right, don't
I? the 767 is the twin-aisle?) appeared on transAtlantic runs. That's
a perfect-sized airplane. You don't get the claustrophobia you get in
a single-aisle plane; you can go to the toilet in one aisle while the
food or drinks cart is blocking the other, and you can walk up one
aisle and down the other to get a bit of exercise. And when it's time
to get off and find your bags, you can be in the taxi by the time the
747 has disgorged its cargo.

They're talking up to 800 people for the Airbus 380! Good grief.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

"Cub Driver" wrote in message ...
In the 1970s Boeing bet the company on the 747. Now Airbus is betting
the company on the Next Bigger Thing. Boeing has absolutely no
response to this.

Actually, Boeing's responce is "Airlines don't want big planes in big
numbers and anyone who tries this will lose money". (My paraphrase)

If Boeing set out to build a Bigger Thing faster or better than
Airbus, it would only succeed in crippling both companies, because it
needs the 747 income to survive.

No.

Boeing 747 revenue is only 10% of the comercial aircraft revenue, which
is only 50% of Boeing revenue. Almost no one is ordering anything
bigger than a 737 from Boeing. There are only 52 747's on order
total, as opposed to 195 777s and 798 737's.

Only 17 747's were ordered this year, and only 27 were delivered.

Basically, the 747 is fading gracefully. It's been around a long time
though.

For 2002, the only planes who's order books grew were the
a320
a380
737-800
Embraer 170

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...

snip
Basically, the 747 is fading gracefully. It's been around a long time
though.

For 2002, the only planes who's order books grew were the
a320
a380
737-800
Embraer 170

Which vaildates Boeing's expectation of increasing market fragmentation.

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote

"Cub Driver" wrote
In the 1970s Boeing bet the company on the 747. Now Airbus is betting
the company on the Next Bigger Thing. Boeing has absolutely no
response to this.

There's this difference: Airbus is betting nothing. The launch aid and
below-market loans will be forgiven if the bet turns out to be bad.

Actually, Boeing's responce is "Airlines don't want big planes in big
numbers and anyone who tries this will lose money". (My paraphrase)

And they were right. The people who stand to lose money are European tax
payers. The business proposition made no sense if you were talking about
risking your_own_money.

That's interesting analysis. (I don't know anything about Airbus's
financial arrangements, other than to accept the Wall Street Journal's
statement that they are indeed subsidized by European governments.)

If correct, you are validating Boeing's decision to take the contest
elsewhere.

Boeing's situation is an interesting refutation of the current belief
that being the first mover is the most important thing. Airbus came
along and essentially duplicated Boeing's line, with the end result
that everything Airbus has is newer.

I suspect that Boeing will come out all right. In the first place,
nobody wants a situation in which there is only one airliner
manufacturer in the world (even if that mfgr is Boeing!). In the
second place, it has since the 1930s built wonderful airplanes. I feel
just a bit more secure flying a Boeing jet than I do the Airbus
variants (and that's what they are--variants).


"Charles Talleyrand" wrote

"Cub Driver" wrote
In the 1970s Boeing bet the company on the 747. Now Airbus is betting
the company on the Next Bigger Thing. Boeing has absolutely no
response to this.

There's this difference: Airbus is betting nothing. The launch aid and
below-market loans will be forgiven if the bet turns out to be bad.

Actually, Boeing's responce is "Airlines don't want big planes in big
numbers and anyone who tries this will lose money". (My paraphrase)

And they were right. The people who stand to lose money are European tax
payers. The business proposition made no sense if you were talking about
risking your_own_money.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote

"Cub Driver" wrote
In the 1970s Boeing bet the company on the 747. Now Airbus is betting
the company on the Next Bigger Thing. Boeing has absolutely no
response to this.

There's this difference: Airbus is betting nothing. The launch aid and
below-market loans will be forgiven if the bet turns out to be bad.

Actually, Boeing's responce is "Airlines don't want big planes in big
numbers and anyone who tries this will lose money". (My paraphrase)

And they were right. The people who stand to lose money are European tax
payers. The business proposition made no sense if you were talking about
risking your_own_money.

"Cub Driver" wrote
That's interesting analysis. (I don't know anything about Airbus's
financial arrangements, other than to accept the Wall Street Journal's
statement that they are indeed subsidized by European governments.)

If correct, you are validating Boeing's decision to take the contest
elsewhere.

Boeing's situation is an interesting refutation of the current belief
that being the first mover is the most important thing. Airbus came
along and essentially duplicated Boeing's line, with the end result
that everything Airbus has is newer.

I suspect that Boeing will come out all right. In the first place,
nobody wants a situation in which there is only one airliner
manufacturer in the world (even if that mfgr is Boeing!). In the
second place, it has since the 1930s built wonderful airplanes. I feel
just a bit more secure flying a Boeing jet than I do the Airbus
variants (and that's what they are--variants).

_All_the Airbus models had their non-recurring engineering costs heavily and
directly subsidized by European tax payers. That's tough for Boeing to
compete with. In an interview (about 1990), Jean Pearson the (then) managing
director of AirbusIndustrie said that Boeing financed the development of the
B757 and B767 out of "the unconsciencable profits from the B747".

Europeans are of the opinion that because Boeing was paid for military
airframe work on things like the KC-135, B-52 and the proposal concepts for
the Boeing version of the C-5 that the designs of Boeing transports were
"subsidized" by the USG. In order to get a European airframer into the
transport business, the various host governments have paid AirbusIndustrie
hundreds of billions in direct launch aid through outright grants and
below-market loans.

The news today about Boeing building the 7E7 and giving the wing to
Japan to build sounds like it was taken directly out of the text of
Micheal Crichton's book Airframe, where some unscrupulous executives
at an ailing aircraft manufacturer give away closely guarded secrets
to turn a quick profit at the cost of future American jobs. Is this
really good news for Boeing...?

This is called globalization and it has been here for quite a while, so it
isn't anything that new. The companies are there to make money, not to safe
guard jobs.