The American Prospect: “The Airbus Advantage”

In the wake of the midair blowout of a door on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 earlier this month, the lead that Airbus has taken over Boeing in the manufacture and sales of the world’s commercial aircraft has, not surprisingly, grown. It’s actually been growing for some time: Last year, Airbus delivered 735 new planes to airlines and leasing companies, The New York Times reported, while Boeing delivered just 528. Airbus had an order backlog of 8,600 new planes, against Boeing’s 5,626. This month’s blowout reinforced the public’s—and consequently, the airlines’—doubts about Boeing’s commitment to safety, which soared after two disastrous crashes of its 737s in 2018 and 2019.

Harold Meyerson

After the fatal crashes a couple of years ago, more issues with Boeing’s 737 Max planes have come to light this past month, leading to more aircraft being grounded and inspected. And, unsurprisingly, this erosion of trust in Boeing’s quality and safety protocols has made customers reconsider their orders and gradually shift to the (European) competition. In an industry with extra-long cycle times from order to final delivery, it will be that much harder for the company to reestablish trust and turn things around.

A350 passenger aircraft at the Airbus factory in Blagnac, France. The company announced it had delivered more planes and taken more orders in 2023 than Boeing. Stephane Mahe/Reuters

In sum, Airbus’s clear leadership over Boeing in matters of flight safety stem in good measure from their differences in ownership and worker power—that is, from the European model of mitigating laissez-faire capitalism with a measure of public and worker power, and from the American model of subjecting corporate policy almost entirely to the demands of investment institutions. Which, if you track the value of Boeing’s stock, hasn’t worked out that well for those investment institutions, either.

By the way, just how outsourced is Boeing production? Only yesterday, it was revealed the door plug that blew out of the Alaska Airlines plane wasn’t actually produced in Wichita. It was produced in Malaysia, where I very much doubt that workers’ concerns about speed of production and quality oversight have much impact on their managers. More significantly, the fact that the Malaysian production of the door plug didn’t come to light until yesterday—12 days after the blowout—suggests just how profoundly outsourcing can obscure the public visibility required for corporate accountability.

The linked article does an excellent job of laying out the reasons behind Boeing’s declining reliability, and how the single-minded pursuit of profits over all other considerations (safety, worker satisfaction, environmental damage) ends up hurting the company over the long term. And you can tell things have gotten out of control when a former Boeing senior manager declares he wouldn’t fly a Max airplane…