After all, pressure to stand apart from its major rival had only mounted over the course of 2011, as Airbus racked up commitments to its revamped single-aisle, topping the 1,000-unit mark after an orders bonanza at June's Paris air show. Seattle, meanwhile, was wrestling a dilemma.
With its wounds from the long battle to bring the 787 to the market still weeping, could Boeing take on the enormous expense and engineering burden that an all-new type would entail? This in exchange for a differentiated marketing pitch and a step-change improvement in operating efficiency, rather than a merely incremental one?
Or must a pragmatic attitude prevail, guiding the airframer to a product that kept pace with its rival in performance, timeframe and cost terms?
0 comments:
Post a Comment