First 787 Rollout (7/8/07)

[floundericiousMI]

The biggest thing would be the necessary capital and overhead. You need a supply base, facilities, and workforce to assemble something with 100,000 parts.

It's almost as though a player would have to license a design from a Boeing or Airbus and then begin designing their own aircraft on the side. They'd likely be almost immediately bought out in a hostile takeover by some megacorp, unless they were a private company (very very very difficult to get enough capital for operations without an IPO). I mean, you'd have to line up billions of dollars a year for a few years to be able to START making planes...

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I think you're falling into the overly-specific internet non-definition of a monopoly - ie, 'Electronic Arts is a monopoly because they make sports games'! In reality there's a host of commercial aircraft makers (including big ones like Embraer and Bombadier) and many, many, many commercial aviation companies. If Airbus imploded today, Boeing would still be nowhere near a monopoly.

 

[Mancubus]

'Monopoly - the only current and potential distributor of the product in specific market branch' - this definition is probabyl rough, because it's my translation, but it comes from David Begg's, Stanley Fisher end Rudiger Dornbush's "Economics".

Now the problem is a definition of a mrket branch - if we define a commercial aircraft production as one branch, we'll have lots of companies. However, if we define it as long range pasanger liners we'll be left with only Boeing and Airbus.

Personally, I think that if Airbus were driven out of buisness, there will be company wich tries to enter its place, probably even not a commertial aircraft company, but the one that has expierience building long range military Jets

And last, but not least. As i stated before I like Boeing designs much better then aribus ones. However main reason of my posting a 'Monopoly' post was because this topic started to be a good place to hate Airbus...

 

[Frosty]

If Airbus really does get eliminated, it'll simply break into several smaller companies that will still compete with Boeing for the exact same markets.

And even if Airbus ceased to exist entirely through some sort of sorcery, I'm pretty sure Embraer would leap at the chance to capture some market share. Their planes are pretty common and have impeccable records.

Barring that, Boeing still simply isn't large enough to supply enough airplanes to every customer. Being a company Boeing's size with waiting lists for your products is far preferable to being a giant company that has to maintain huge output in every market to keep up with overhead. There's no danger of a Boeing monopoly on passenger jets simply because the company is out to be profitable, not huge.

 

[Edfilho]

Yay for Embraer, go Brazil!

 

[Kavok]

Boeing is driving Airbus out of business

w00t! xD

Sirs,

This is a snide and totally unneccessary comment by Drakon. There are European people on this board who don't want to see the end of the consortium, and I am one of them. The monster Airbus aircraft may be ill-concieved, but I want the company to survive. The market is big enough for both companies, and European jobs and families need Airbus, though not my own. If Airbus goes down, so be it, but I'd rather you not gloat.

 

[Frosty]

Being that I own tens of thousands of dollars of Boeing stock, I'm going to gloat all I want. You can shove it up your ass.

 

[Drakon]

Sirs,
This is a snide and totally unneccessary comment by Drakon. There are European people on this board who don't want to see the end of the consortium, and I am one of them. The monster Airbus aircraft may be ill-concieved, but I want the company to survive. The market is big enough for both companies, and European jobs and families need Airbus, though not my own. If Airbus goes down, so be it, but I'd rather you not gloat.

It wasn't my intention to offend Europeans. On American airline companies I've flown on more aircraft manufactured by Airbus than Boeing. They are fine aircraft, and to be honest, I don't want either of the businesses to find hard times. I, too, think there's room for both and the market wouldn't be better off without one or the other. Speculation shouldn't be taken too seriously when it's just wishful thinking and assumptions anyway. American posters will be biased towards Boeing, Europeans towards Airbus, and even Brazilians towards Embraer (I've only heard good things about them, but I'm not going to risk opening another can of worms now ).

Hehehe, I am not going to pretend like I'm not happy with Boeing's success - especially when it gives some of my friends their paychecks and is a notable sustainer of small, contracted business in my area. Besides, the "w00t" wasn't a remark directed at Airbus's losses anyway, it was for learning that Boeing was doing well. Like I said, many Europeans I know had told me the opposite. Jobs from Boeing impact American families too. I won't be ashamed of being pleased to hear of its success when it will probably lead to more jobs and more economic growth. I can see where it could be misinterpreted though. Uneccessary? Probably - none of us here really have to post anything. Snide? Absolutely not, and I'm sorry if you read it that way.

...moving off of what looks like a bad path for the thread to take, what can be said about upcomming aircraft models? All of the manufacturers are toiling over securing interests in the long term. Seeing assembled, ready-to-go products is great, but does anyone know what's on the drawing boards right now?