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Boeing Versus Airbus
The commercial airline industry is one of the most volatile, dog-eat-dog enterprises in the world, and in the late 1990s, Europe’s Airbus overtook America’s Boeing as the preeminent aircraft manufacturer. However, Airbus quickly succumbed to the same complacency it once challenged, and Boeing regained its precarious place on top. Now, after years of heated battle and mismanagement, both companies face the challenge of serving burgeoning Asian markets and stiff competition from China and Japan. Combining insider knowledge with vivid prose and insight, John Newhouse delivers a riveting story of these two titans of the sky and their struggles to stay in the air.
299 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
94 people are currently reading
760 people want to read
About the author
John Newhouse
25 books6 followersWilfred John Newhouse was an American journalist and author.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
May 18, 2013
This could be written in one chapter. Reads more like a newspaper column. Every page is filled with this: Boeing is like this, Airbus is like that. Annoying!
June 30, 2024
I have been picking at this book for a while and finally got around to working through it.
First, some context …. If you read a lot and are interested in following that antics (financial and non-financial) of large firms, it does not take long to get to a fundamental question - What the heck has been going on with Boeing? Not only does this question in some form get asked by all sorts of people, from employees and former employees, to investors, to media, to students, to the more general public. The answer would provide the basis for a large and complex book - and I am certain that one is being written as I type this.
There will be a temptation to look at recent events at Boeing as key to its current problems, but I think that would be shortsighted. Boeing’s problems go back a long way and many current issues have a long history. John Newhouse’s book highlights a major line of events that shaped Boeing back before the turn of the Millenium - its competition with the Airbus consortium. (The book itself ends with the move of Boeing away from Seattle, which places the narrative at the dawn of the new millenium.). This is one of the most interesting strategic competitions ever and has been important for shaping competition in the post- 9/11 period. Of course there are lots of specific issues beyond the immediate competition with Airbus including mergers, top management turmoil, the rise of shareholder-driven earnings management, government relations, and cultural clashes. In my opinion, however, these all have there roots in the changes that hit Boeing in the 1980s and 1990s.
So if you want to learn more about Boeing, this is a reasonable place to start. Don’t forget to keep reading, however, to get up to date.
First, some context …. If you read a lot and are interested in following that antics (financial and non-financial) of large firms, it does not take long to get to a fundamental question - What the heck has been going on with Boeing? Not only does this question in some form get asked by all sorts of people, from employees and former employees, to investors, to media, to students, to the more general public. The answer would provide the basis for a large and complex book - and I am certain that one is being written as I type this.
There will be a temptation to look at recent events at Boeing as key to its current problems, but I think that would be shortsighted. Boeing’s problems go back a long way and many current issues have a long history. John Newhouse’s book highlights a major line of events that shaped Boeing back before the turn of the Millenium - its competition with the Airbus consortium. (The book itself ends with the move of Boeing away from Seattle, which places the narrative at the dawn of the new millenium.). This is one of the most interesting strategic competitions ever and has been important for shaping competition in the post- 9/11 period. Of course there are lots of specific issues beyond the immediate competition with Airbus including mergers, top management turmoil, the rise of shareholder-driven earnings management, government relations, and cultural clashes. In my opinion, however, these all have there roots in the changes that hit Boeing in the 1980s and 1990s.
So if you want to learn more about Boeing, this is a reasonable place to start. Don’t forget to keep reading, however, to get up to date.
October 8, 2023
Amazone
A great half-story
Boeing versus Airbus is a definitive must tead for any Aviation Business executive. Within are revealed many insights and some astonishing accounts of price fixing, corruption and company scandals.
To non aviation minded readers, with a keen business or political interest, the book might also appeal as it brings to light a heavy industry, which in this day and age of fast food and instant gratification, is often forgotten.
Newhouse does a great job of describing, in painstaking detail, this complex industry.
Contrary to its name the book does more in this regard than to actually portray, in as much detail, the war between two industrial giants. A more appropriate name could be 'The commercial aviation industry and those who supply it'.
The author does seem to spend a lot more time in Seattle than in Toulouse. Boeing's complicated encounters with the US government are well described, yet an acknowledged problematic Airbus-EADS relationship barely gets a few closing statements.
The mid to large aircraft market gets the most vivid detail, perhaps due to the romance that still exists in the nature of such aircraft and the routes they fly.
Workhorses, that is the 737 vs the A320 battle, begs a little more...something.
These pitfalls aside, the book is intelligently written and well researched. What it displays, it displays well.
Perhaps when the A350 moves in and the reengined short haulers come into play within this decade, a bigger, fuller, more complete account can build on Airbus versus Boeing.
Hermes
A great half-story
Boeing versus Airbus is a definitive must tead for any Aviation Business executive. Within are revealed many insights and some astonishing accounts of price fixing, corruption and company scandals.
To non aviation minded readers, with a keen business or political interest, the book might also appeal as it brings to light a heavy industry, which in this day and age of fast food and instant gratification, is often forgotten.
Newhouse does a great job of describing, in painstaking detail, this complex industry.
Contrary to its name the book does more in this regard than to actually portray, in as much detail, the war between two industrial giants. A more appropriate name could be 'The commercial aviation industry and those who supply it'.
The author does seem to spend a lot more time in Seattle than in Toulouse. Boeing's complicated encounters with the US government are well described, yet an acknowledged problematic Airbus-EADS relationship barely gets a few closing statements.
The mid to large aircraft market gets the most vivid detail, perhaps due to the romance that still exists in the nature of such aircraft and the routes they fly.
Workhorses, that is the 737 vs the A320 battle, begs a little more...something.
These pitfalls aside, the book is intelligently written and well researched. What it displays, it displays well.
Perhaps when the A350 moves in and the reengined short haulers come into play within this decade, a bigger, fuller, more complete account can build on Airbus versus Boeing.
Hermes
January 17, 2016
Boeing versus Airbus is certainly not as good as Newhouse's earlier book The Sporty Book which covered the major events in the airplane manufacturing industry during the 1980s. Nonetheless it provides an adequate history of the competition waged between 1990 and 2005 by the two firms that still dominate the airplane market in 2016.
John Newhouse is a highly qualified observer who has very sound judgement concerning the trends in the industry. Notably his prediction that Airbus would never sell enough A380s to earn a return on the investment has been born out by subsequent events. Also, Newhouse correctly anticipated that after having lost market share for a decade to Airbus, Boeing had assembled a new management team and product portfolio that would allow it to maintain its position market in the decade.
However, despite the fact that Newhouse's conclusions and forecasts have subsequently proven to have been very solid, the research effort for the book seems perfunctory at best. as he appears primarily to have culled his old interview notes. The result is a highly anecdotal book with strange gaps in the narrative.
John Newhouse is a highly qualified observer who has very sound judgement concerning the trends in the industry. Notably his prediction that Airbus would never sell enough A380s to earn a return on the investment has been born out by subsequent events. Also, Newhouse correctly anticipated that after having lost market share for a decade to Airbus, Boeing had assembled a new management team and product portfolio that would allow it to maintain its position market in the decade.
However, despite the fact that Newhouse's conclusions and forecasts have subsequently proven to have been very solid, the research effort for the book seems perfunctory at best. as he appears primarily to have culled his old interview notes. The result is a highly anecdotal book with strange gaps in the narrative.
June 11, 2015
The book has a lot of details about the two companies, their operations, management style and how all of this fares them against one another. But, what I missed here is details on key things that would have mattered; numbers for production rates, margins, sales growth etc that would show definitive comparison between the two.
Also, the chronology of events is not maintained rather few chapters are just filled up with contents un-necessary to the point or not relevant in the context.
Could have been a good short read rather than a book.
Also, the chronology of events is not maintained rather few chapters are just filled up with contents un-necessary to the point or not relevant in the context.
Could have been a good short read rather than a book.
December 14, 2012
These two companies are the two biggest rivals in the aviation industry and the biggest business rivals internationally. John Newhouse takes us through Boeing's fall in the 1990's, to the corrupted leadership of Airbus in the 2000's. Must read for anyone who loves buisness and aviation.
January 23, 2011
A somewhat lackluster sequel to "The Sporty Game." Still, quite interesting if you're into airliners.
August 15, 2025
Ash Green, Newhouse’s editor, shat the bed. How unfortunate: Newhouse’s knowledge and storytelling ability had potential.
There are the small things: unqualified adjectives (“deeply disruptive” p. 20), misused words (“worldly” p. 15), undefined acronyms (“EADS” p. 10) and so on. Any decent editor should have spotted and corrected these. Ash Green, or his delegate copy editor, did not.
And there are the big things: non-linearity and triviality. Walter Isaacson says the key principles of good writing are “all in good time” and “let me tell you a story.” [1] Green fails to help Newhouse bring these forth.
Isaacson’s mentor, the great non-fiction editor Alice Mayhew, would write “AIGT” in the margin each time Isaacson introduced a non-linearity. Green should have returned Newhouse’s manuscript with a pox of AIGT ticks. He did not. Newhouse was left free to reference 1980s Airbus and 1960s Boeing on one page, then 1990s Airbus and 2005 Boeing (implicitly) on the next. Reading this book is like riding an old rollercoaster that shakes and rocks and involuntarily bangs your head back and forth against the harness. Rat-a-tat-a-ta! Vomitous.
The other Isaacson principle is “let me tell you a story.” Newhouse is capable of illustrating a point with a story. He illustrates the character of manager T. Wilson with a story about buying back Boeing’s non-functional streetcars delivered to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (p. 6). More of this. Without stories to give us meaning, this book is a collection of trivia. Since it is factually accurate, it is possible to pull meaning from this data. But I should not have to munge a professionally edited book. Maybe Vintage should take a hint from T. Wilson.
If Ash Green were a good editor, he would have read the manuscript, pulled the anecdotes, events, cast, etc., put them on notecards, sat with Newhouse—at his kitchen table if he had to—and arranged this awful mess into a coherent story. Alas, he did not. Newhouse writes “Lastly, I want to thank Ash Green…” Good. Ash Green deserves to be thanked last.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Up2-7UU...
There are the small things: unqualified adjectives (“deeply disruptive” p. 20), misused words (“worldly” p. 15), undefined acronyms (“EADS” p. 10) and so on. Any decent editor should have spotted and corrected these. Ash Green, or his delegate copy editor, did not.
And there are the big things: non-linearity and triviality. Walter Isaacson says the key principles of good writing are “all in good time” and “let me tell you a story.” [1] Green fails to help Newhouse bring these forth.
Isaacson’s mentor, the great non-fiction editor Alice Mayhew, would write “AIGT” in the margin each time Isaacson introduced a non-linearity. Green should have returned Newhouse’s manuscript with a pox of AIGT ticks. He did not. Newhouse was left free to reference 1980s Airbus and 1960s Boeing on one page, then 1990s Airbus and 2005 Boeing (implicitly) on the next. Reading this book is like riding an old rollercoaster that shakes and rocks and involuntarily bangs your head back and forth against the harness. Rat-a-tat-a-ta! Vomitous.
The other Isaacson principle is “let me tell you a story.” Newhouse is capable of illustrating a point with a story. He illustrates the character of manager T. Wilson with a story about buying back Boeing’s non-functional streetcars delivered to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (p. 6). More of this. Without stories to give us meaning, this book is a collection of trivia. Since it is factually accurate, it is possible to pull meaning from this data. But I should not have to munge a professionally edited book. Maybe Vintage should take a hint from T. Wilson.
If Ash Green were a good editor, he would have read the manuscript, pulled the anecdotes, events, cast, etc., put them on notecards, sat with Newhouse—at his kitchen table if he had to—and arranged this awful mess into a coherent story. Alas, he did not. Newhouse writes “Lastly, I want to thank Ash Green…” Good. Ash Green deserves to be thanked last.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Up2-7UU...
September 14, 2025
in 2025 very much outdated.
January 19, 2020
Brilliantly written book which chronicles the journey of Boeing and Airbus over the past half century. A rich explanation on the interaction between the various stakeholders like airlines, engine manufacturers, politics with these aircraft manufacturers, is commendable. This opens up our mind to the wide array of global dynamics which is not intuitive.
John Newhouse clearly takes the side against Boeing, but not for Airbus. This could have arose due to the sense of betrayal that Americans might have felt due to its involvement in too many scandals as well as due to the culture shift from being a company run by engineers to being run by managers.
Given the book was written in 2007, the end of book only leaves us yearning for a good sequel which can cover the subsequent decade of the competition between Boeing and Airbus.
This is a resourceful and a well researched book, that is really well written and deserves many re-reads. My decision to not give a full on five star for this book is due to its lack of engineering details contrasting the big two. A dive into the engineering realm would have been awesome and holistic, which this book lacks.
John Newhouse clearly takes the side against Boeing, but not for Airbus. This could have arose due to the sense of betrayal that Americans might have felt due to its involvement in too many scandals as well as due to the culture shift from being a company run by engineers to being run by managers.
Given the book was written in 2007, the end of book only leaves us yearning for a good sequel which can cover the subsequent decade of the competition between Boeing and Airbus.
This is a resourceful and a well researched book, that is really well written and deserves many re-reads. My decision to not give a full on five star for this book is due to its lack of engineering details contrasting the big two. A dive into the engineering realm would have been awesome and holistic, which this book lacks.
October 8, 2015
Interesting story of the concurrent paths of these two giants of airframe manufacturers, especially in identifying the swings to & from dominance and decline that each have experienced.
Some of the characters described were certainly larger than life too.
As with many books on the aviation industry this has quickly dated having been written before delivery of the first B787 and when the development of the A350 was barely begun. Also evidenced by the observation that Emirates gets scant reference whilst Etihad and Qatar were not even mentioned.
Apart from that I found it really interesting and informative.
Some of the characters described were certainly larger than life too.
As with many books on the aviation industry this has quickly dated having been written before delivery of the first B787 and when the development of the A350 was barely begun. Also evidenced by the observation that Emirates gets scant reference whilst Etihad and Qatar were not even mentioned.
Apart from that I found it really interesting and informative.
September 15, 2014
جيد لأي مهتم بالطيران او فقط للإطلاع على تاريخ مصنعيين عمالقة,كملاحظة صغيرة شفت انه يمجد ايرباص ويهمش بوينج (ممكن بوينج تكون شركة سيئة في الواقع)لكن ماعندي إطلاع مسبق يسمح بمعرفة او نقض رأي الكاتب,قراءة ممتعة
--
شاهد هذا الوثائقي المهم إذا كنت مهتم بشركة بوينج
Al Jazeera Investigates - Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEps...
--
شاهد هذا الوثائقي المهم إذا كنت مهتم بشركة بوينج
Al Jazeera Investigates - Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEps...
April 26, 2014
It reads like a tennis match and Newhouse provides blame, praise and insight for both airframe manufacturers. China's upcoming entry into the commercial aircraft market will make this an ongoing "who's in first?'
October 22, 2016
Good history on the rise and development of both companies and the overall industry landscape, but started getting lost in all the similar plane model numbers somewhere near the middle... This book needs a reference chart showing how the models compare/compete against each other.
August 13, 2016
The Economist gave this book a great review.
http://economist.com/books/displaysto...
http://economist.com/books/displaysto...
September 20, 2007
wonderfully skim-able. Would have made a great 2 part series in the business section. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I spent less than a day on it.
November 18, 2010
hell why i must know about the business? cool. I'm in aviation.
May 21, 2023
A primarily American view from about 35000 feet, little new or specific and blandly written as you'd expect from an author of Mr Newhouse's background. Ultimatley unsatisfying and now somewhat behind current events as this book finished somewhere around 2006. The Airbus elements were interesting but well short of those included for Boeing.
Not much critique of major player who seem to have had a bad effect on Boeing.
The author jumps about in time an awful lot which makes following the scipt sometimes difficult and confusing. I'd recommend avoiding this one. Try Flying Blind instead.
Not much critique of major player who seem to have had a bad effect on Boeing.
The author jumps about in time an awful lot which makes following the scipt sometimes difficult and confusing. I'd recommend avoiding this one. Try Flying Blind instead.
May 17, 2017
Pretty good overview of the market dynamics and competitive pressures faced by Boeing and Airbus. A fairly detailed history of the 787 Dreamliner project with some good insights into how airlines buy and operate planes, and who calls the shots in the airline industry. The book needlessly goes into Boeing's corporate infighting, boardroom chess and personality clashes, which does get boring after a bit.
May 28, 2020
-Historically you can understand by reading this book the main technological, political and economic factors that have made the aviation industry evolve
-It is written in an friendly way, were any reader can understand technical aspects of the topics
-It is written in an friendly way, were any reader can understand technical aspects of the topics
June 24, 2023
I read /Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business/, by John Newhouse:
https://www.leanblog.org/2007/08/book...
Fascinating!
https://www.leanblog.org/2007/08/book...
Fascinating!
July 5, 2019
great book!!
July 21, 2019
Informative, but reads like a stack of WSJ articles stitched together into a book.
May 22, 2020
If you want to understand some of the reasons for Boeing’s challenges today - read this book.
September 10, 2021
Accurate representation of Airbus and Boeing's rivalry, though the book also focuses on MD and all other companies in the USA and Europe. Great book, but could improve.
December 15, 2021
Little about aerodynamic philsophy and the engineers who built the beasts.... very dissappointing book.
June 6, 2022
Boeing and Airbus are both great aircraft manufacturers. Both of them have record breaking aircrafts and have various record breaking stuffs. I highly recommend people reading this book!
November 1, 2022
Pretty good book. Was re-reading it and it is interesting, but could have been more dynamic/expansive on the impact of the competition.
August 24, 2025
Book felt incomplete. There are so many aspects which could have been covered but majority of the book was on the geo political front.
January 6, 2025
you could just use one chapter for the whole book
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews