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Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

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Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#21

Post by Tuna-Fish »

kortilla wrote: post #9
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A320 and the 737 were designed in entirely different worlds. The 737 was designed using light tables and slide rules, to use low-bypass turbofans and direct controls with avionics only on board to optionally aid the pilots. The A320 was designed in CAD and using CFD, with full digital fly-by-wire, and designed from the start for high-bypass turbofans. Both designs have been updated plenty since, but because the basic…

> The wonder is not that the A320 finally caught up in sales, it's that the 737 can still be legally sold. What’s wrong with the 737 design that it wouldn’t pass today as a new aircraft? (Ignoring the disaster that was the MAX.)

For starters, the bicameral avionics.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#22

Post by octo888 »

pxndxx wrote: post #20

Vueling, the largest airline in Spain is actually shifting from the 320 to an all Boeing 737 MAX fleet in the coming years. I was really sad to hear that given it's size and presence in Europe.

As if we needed another reason not to fly Vueling...!

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#23

Post by bobthepanda »

jraby3 wrote: post #14
mojuba wrote: post #5

Makes it even more impressive considering that the A320 is slightly more expensive.

Pricing on these planes is pretty complex. It's a stretch to say that airbus is unequivocally more expensive without comparing various options. Source: my brother worked for Boeing in sales and has been in the industry 30 years.

Yeah, also nobody pays list price.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#24

Post by closewith »

h4kunamata wrote: post #19

Poised?? Only if a company is completely blind to buy Boeing planes in 2025! It does not matter if the places are millions of dollars cheaper, all the money spent with lawsuits and lawyers when things go sideways, plus the airline name dragged to shit, I don't think it is worth.

The airline with the best safety record in the world, Ryanair, is an all-Boeing 737 fleet (with the exception of the Lauda Airbus A320-200s) that has never had a fatal accident, despite over a 120 Boeing 737 MAX-8s currently operating.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#25

Post by svelle »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #17
themafia wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition keeps entities honest. Monopolies will kill you. In Boeing's case both figuratively for the business and literally for it's customers.

>Monopolies will kill you. So when is it gonna kill Google?

Or Microsoft. For all I know it primarily kills competition...

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#26

Post by Pavilion2095 »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #2

Complacency - particularly a sense of you being on top in the natural order of things - will kill you, one way or another. No empire has ever survived it from the Romans to, the British empire to, well, I guess Boeing. Business textbooks are rammed with stories of complacency gutting market-dominating corporates (IBM, Kodak, Xerox), and the big reckoning seems to be coming for the likes of Boeing, GM, Ford, and many…

> The interesting thing for me about this particular tale is the commercial genesis of Airbus and the incentives of the management team have led it to catch up despite Boeing have a 20-year head start.

But Boeing introduced several new planes during these 20 years. If anything, they abandoned the idea of a new design and introduced 737 MAX as a response to the competition - A320neo.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#27

Post by rob74 »

pxndxx wrote: post #20

Vueling, the largest airline in Spain is actually shifting from the 320 to an all Boeing 737 MAX fleet in the coming years. I was really sad to hear that given it's size and presence in Europe.

Eurowings (Lufthansa's low cost carrier) has also ordered 40 737 MAX (or rather has been "allocated" a probably pre-existing order): https://newscloud.eurowings.com/en/eurowings-sets-sights-on-... Notwithstanding the marketing BS, I wonder what the real reason behind this decision is - probably a combination between the length of Airbus's delivery backlog, a "sweet" deal with Boeing, cozying up to Trump, and some other considerations that I can't think of right now?

EDIT: after researching a bit more, it looks like the initial order was from 2023 (https://simpleflying.com/lufthansa-40-boeing-737-max-40-airb...), so "cozying up to Trump" was probably not a factor at the time. Also, I imagine that order being passed around like the proverbial hot potato between all the airlines in Lufthansa group, until it finally landed in Eurowings' lap: "Interested in some brand new state of the art 737 MAXes? No? Why? What do you mean, `You take them if you're so fond of them`? We would, gladly, but we have an all-A320 fleet and would like to keep it that way. Oh, you too, really?".

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#28

Post by jhoechtl »

duke_sam wrote: post #3

It’s impressive that Airbus caught up with Boeing after a 20 year head start. It sounds like Airbus’s bet on the future paid off but the article reads more like a PR piece than a case for why the A320 out competed the 737.

> It sounds like Airbus’s bet on the future paid of

Well they did bet on the Dreamliner, fell on their nose and still recovered.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#29

Post by jhoechtl »

Gareth321 wrote: post #18
speedgoose wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, mostly based on Kerbal Space Program, the aircraft isn’t well balanced when equiped with modern engines. So you have to constantly apply some controls to fly, done by software. I love stupid car comparisons so imagine a car with a new engine that is more economical to run, but very heavy on the left so the car constantly want to turn left. But if you apply force to the steering wheel manually o…

The main issue arose because Boeing wanted to install larger, more fuel-efficient CFM LEAP-1B engines without changing the aircraft’s landing gear height too much (which would have required expensive redesigns of the fuselage and systems, triggering a new certification process). On earlier 737s, engines were already mounted quite far forward under the wing because of the aircraft’s low stance. The larger MAX engines…

That makes a very intersting read and adds the necessary context to the previous comment how that plan can actually be legally sold.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#30

Post by rsynnott »

rob74 wrote: post #27
pxndxx wrote: post #20

Vueling, the largest airline in Spain is actually shifting from the 320 to an all Boeing 737 MAX fleet in the coming years. I was really sad to hear that given it's size and presence in Europe.

Eurowings (Lufthansa's low cost carrier) has also ordered 40 737 MAX (or rather has been "allocated" a probably pre-existing order): https://newscloud.eurowings.com/en/eurowings-sets-sights-on-... Notwithstanding the marketing BS, I wonder what the real reason behind this decision is - probably a combination between the length of Airbus's delivery backlog, a "sweet" deal with Boeing, cozying up to Trump, and some oth…

> probably a combination between the length of Airbus's delivery backlog

It's likely this. Airbus has a backlog of ~7500 A32x orders right now, and produces about 75 a month, so if you order one today, you're looking at eight years.

Though also some budget airlines like the 737 because it's _short_; it's not as high off the ground as an A320, making access via airstairs more feasible.

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