“The 737 Max is not competitive with the A320 NEO series.”
Apparently so, but why? Why didn’t Boeing have the resources available to design a new plane that could compete with the NEO? How is Boeing spending their money compared to Airbus? For example, does Europe have a bunch of substandard universities graduating people with near-useless STEM degrees, as the US does, particularly in the South...people that large companies are then forced to hire, due to government requirements?
You beat up a horse enough, you eventually cannot ride it, or something like that.
Boeing made the mistake that the Max would preclude the need for newly certified pilots. This was key to retain Southwest Airlines as a customer (all B737 fleet).
But the Max is not as efficient and the way they implemented the MCAS system (which killed hundreds) without telling pilots, has put a pox on Boeing single aisle aircraft.
It was bad leadership, bad product, bad engineering.
Had Boeing gone down the 787 path of a carbon fiber fuselage and modular capacity, they would have filled a competitive need against Airbus.
It is almost like Airbus has given Boeing the widebody business and Boeing has given Airbus the single aisle business.
They should have designed an entirely new aircraft from the ground up to replace the 737. I guess they didn’t see enough of a military market, and ceded the leadership in the category to Airbus and Embraer. But the larger 737 MAX 10 is coming out soon and even loyal Airbus customer Delta - rather surprisingly - is buying a whole bunch of them. So Boeing isn’t completely out of the single aisle game, yet.