A tour-de-force take on the fabled Airbus vs. Boeing arch-rivalry aimed at decrypting the relative strategy playbooks of the Transatlantic arch-rivals and aerospace giants over the half a century period starting from the early 1970s till the outbreak of pandemic in 2020. It traces & deciphers Airbus' meteoric rise; starting with the global narrow body aircraft market in the mid-1980s with the A320; from being a virtual industry underdog to becoming a worthy & equal adversary and a leading market force within a span of 3+ decades, in an almost David vs Goliath manner, despite Boeing going all out to thwart that and Boeing's eventual fall from grace with the colossal 737MAX disaster. Business and product strategy analysis have been the core pivots & anchors around which the compelling, almost edge-of-the-seat narrative has been structured. Using a neutral & unbiased approach, it analyzes & unravels as to how the aerial, high-G battles panned out over the decades with the decryption of strategy masterstrokes and tactical brilliance from both sides along with gaffes & faux-pas'. The book is a must read for anyone interested in commercial aviation and/or seeking deep insights and practical lessons in Business Strategy from the two Aviation Giants operating with highly contrasting playbooks.

If you love Aviation and/or are smitten by Strategy, then, this is the business class passenger seat for you to grab...Hop in!

Key Excerpts

1. How the launch of the A320, after deregulation of the U.S. market in the late 1970s duly established Airbus as a capable & reliable European OEM, which tactically outmaneuvered Boeing in the U.S. narrow body aircraft market, and created the runway for itself to become an equal-sized arch-rival by the turn of the century?

2. How Boeing's missing out on the development of 7J7, as a replacement for the 727 in the narrow body segment in the late 1980s, was a goof-up which ultimately precipitated the colossal 737MAX blunder almost 2+ decades later?

3. How Airbus' decision to develop the A340 in the wide-body market as a quadjet was an outright tactical blunder with Boeing winning the dogfight effectively with the launch of its 777, as a twin-jet, right after Airbus had committed to the A340?

4. How the A380 was at least a decade behind its time at launch itself in the late 1990s and how Boeing made it irrelevant by launching its classic, two-front pincer movement attack on the A380 spearheaded by the 787; which disrupted the market by offering direct, point-to-point connectivity between city pairs while sporting more efficient engines; and the 747-8, which, too, had next generation GEnx engines developed originally by GE for the 787?

5. How Airbus' decision to disrupt the middle-of-the-market segment with the development of longer range variants of A321, namely, the A321LR & A321XLR; was truly a game changer, while capitalizing effectively on Boeing's weakness, and almost a gaping hole Boeing's product line-up in the narrow body market; especially in the absence of 757, effectively has led to its current, sustained hegemony in the middle-of-the-market segment now?

6. How a majority of Airbus's tactical errors over the decades, so far, have mostly been made in the wide body aircraft market while Boeing's have mostly been made in the narrow body aircraft market?

7. A detailed and relatively lesser known account of how the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing in 1998 actually scripted Boeing's eventual fall from grace with the 737MAX almost two decades later?

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