Would you rather fly in an Airbus or a Boeing? It seems like an easy question.
As Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 flight climbed to 16,000 feet on a January evening in 2024, passengers were stunned when a hole was blasted in the side of the plane. They were hit by howling winds as tray tables were ripped from the backs of seats. Were it not for their seatbelts, they would likely have been sucked out of the plane. It later transpired that the plug which sealed the exit door was missing four critical bolts that held it in place.
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The Alaska Airlines incident fortunately didn’t result in any fatalities. Not everyone who has flown on a Boeing 737 MAX in the last few years has been so lucky.
2018 and 2019 saw two 737 crashes that killed 346 people after the plane’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, a feature that pushes the plane’s nose down to prevent stalling, triggered repeatedly due to a faulty sensor. It later transpired that Boeing had not adequately disclosed how the system worked in training manuals.
While Boeing wrestles with lawsuits and regulatory investigations, its rival Airbus has stayed out of the headlines – a happier place for the manufacturer of commercial airliners.
Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 family deliveries over time. Image Javier Irastorza via Wikimedia.
Europe is a graveyard of failed national champions. They span from the glamorous Concorde to obscure ventures like pan-European computer consortium Unidata or notorious Franco-German search engine Quaero.
Airbus is the rare success story. European governments pooled resources and subsidized their champion aggressively to face down a titan of American capitalism in a strategically vital sector. Why did Airbus succeed when so many similar initiatives crashed and burned?
Airbus prevailed because it was the least European version of a European industrial strategy project ever. It put its customer first, was uninterested in being seen as European, had leadership willing to risk political blowback in the pursuit of a good product, and operated in a unique industry.
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