December 6th 06, 03:05 AM
>Source: Dow Jones News of 17.06.2003
>Boeing Co (BA) may be making a lot of hype at the Paris Air Show about its
>proposed 7E7 airliner that was dubbed the Dreamliner over the weekend, but
>the chief salesman of Boeing's rival
>Airbus (F.ABI) knows a sales gimmick when he sees one.
>"The "dream machine" or whatever it's called? I couldn't have hoped for a
>better name, being
>their competitor. It's a PR man's dream, but an engineer's nightmare," John
>Leahy told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.
>Leahy says he's convinced that, like the Sonic Cruiser idea that Boeing was
>touting around the last
>Paris Air Show as the new superfast substitute for the soon-to-be-defunct
>Concorde, the Dreamliner is more of a marketing department's brainchild than
>something he's really worried about. Five years ago, Boeing's 767-300 jet
>was dominating the market for medium-sized twin-jets, he noted, and now it's
>dead in the market. Boeing knows it will eventually have to come up with a
>replacement for its 757s and 767s, but if it hoped to put the fear of death
>into Airbus by saying it's planning a new airliner that would fly by 2008,
>the effect has been lost on Leahy.
>Boeing's idea is to leapfrog Airbus's A330-200 airliner by bringing out a
>fuel-efficient, modern-technology airliner to carry between 200-250
>passengers and with a maximum range of nearly 15,000 kilometers.
>Boeing is betting that there will be increased demand for point-to-point
>flights and that the Dreamliner would respond to that demand. "It's purely a
>PR man's dream," said Leahy. "I think the
>traveling public knows that, too, which is probably why they voted for it,"
>in a name-picking scheme organized on the Internet by the U.S. company.
>"In fact," Leahy said, "it seems most of the people at Airbus who voted
>picked the Dreamliner. Some of the traditionalists voted for
>"Stratoclimber," which would have been a better name." "I was pretty much
>convinced that they would do it in recent months. But now I'm convinced
>they're not going to do it," the Airbus executive went on.
>"Why? Because now they're talking about the sexy shape of the windshield,
>the distinctive nose and the rake of the wingtip fences and how it will be
>distinguishable from other airplanes in the marketplace.
>And how people will just look at it and say: "Now!" Leahy recalled the five
>or six strenuous years when he and other Airbus executives fought endless
>battles to persuade Airbus's partners, shareholders, customer airlines and
>suppliers that the company's strategy of spending $10.7 billion
>to develop the A380 super-jumbo - the world's largest commercial jet was the
>right one.
>"But nobody ever said: "But what's the name?" or "You know, I think it needs
>to look sexier." "When someone starts doing that, it's because they're
>saying to themselves: "I've got a "me-too" product. I'm trying to leapfrog
>the A330-200 and what the engineers have just come up with looks an awful
>lot like my competitor's airplane.
>" Noting that Chicago, where Boeing is based, isn't too far from Detroit,
>Leahy said Boeing's
>strategy is "a bit like a bunch of guys in the 1960s in Detroit saying: "We
>can hold the Japanese off for a few more years.
>We've got to get those tailfins just a little bit higher, get a little bit
>more chrome, some really
>dynamite headlights, and the Japanese are going to be history, because
>everyone's going to want our new Cadillacs or whatever.
>And they went right off the edge of a cliff doing it." He said manufacturers
>tend to put a layer
>of "Gee-whizz and pizzasz" around their products when they're not capable of
>selling themselves. "When people do that, they're clutching at things.."
>Leahy poured scorn on the notion that people might buy commercial aircraft
>on impulse as they might a fancy car.
>"I hate to say this, as we're spending a lot of money to be here, but we are
>machine-tool makers. These are the machine tools of the air transport
>industry. They're sold on seat-mile costs, ton-mile costs, range, payload,
>environmental efficiency and fuel burn," and not on their looks, he said,
>adding: "That's not the way you buy machine tools." Leahy said that what
>convinced him that the Boeing project won't fly was Boeing's announcement
>that it was going to have a final assembly cycle of three days instead of 30
>days, a reduction of 90% compared to the norm in the business.
>"Why would you do that? Because the business case isn't working."
>Boeing's estimates for the potential market for the new airliner of up to
>3,500 aircraft are also unrealistic, he said, noting that sales of Boeing's
>767, which the Dreamliner is supposed to replace, only totaled 930 over the
>last 25 years. Leahy says he's so convinced the Dreamliner will never fly
>that he's starting taking wagers.
>He predicted that, if Boeing does launch the Dreamliner program, it will be
>a commercial flop as Airbus's competitor will have to amortize the $8
>billion development cost, which he said would automatically add $15 million
>to the sticker price and give Airbus an advantage because the development
>cost of the A330-200, which it is supposed to kill, was only $400,000 as it
>is a derivative of the A330-A340 family. He noted that the commercial
>aircraft industry is cyclical
>and that another cycle is likely in the middle of the next decade that will
>force Boeing and Airbus to have to invest large amounts eventually to renew
>their product lines. "If they bring out something that costs $8 billion in
>2008, they're not going to be around for the 2012-2015 cycle," he predicted
I assume Airbus responded to the preceding article like so...
2003: Exactly right...
2005: I mean oops...
2006: Augh $#@#$@$@#$!!!!
>Boeing Co (BA) may be making a lot of hype at the Paris Air Show about its
>proposed 7E7 airliner that was dubbed the Dreamliner over the weekend, but
>the chief salesman of Boeing's rival
>Airbus (F.ABI) knows a sales gimmick when he sees one.
>"The "dream machine" or whatever it's called? I couldn't have hoped for a
>better name, being
>their competitor. It's a PR man's dream, but an engineer's nightmare," John
>Leahy told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.
>Leahy says he's convinced that, like the Sonic Cruiser idea that Boeing was
>touting around the last
>Paris Air Show as the new superfast substitute for the soon-to-be-defunct
>Concorde, the Dreamliner is more of a marketing department's brainchild than
>something he's really worried about. Five years ago, Boeing's 767-300 jet
>was dominating the market for medium-sized twin-jets, he noted, and now it's
>dead in the market. Boeing knows it will eventually have to come up with a
>replacement for its 757s and 767s, but if it hoped to put the fear of death
>into Airbus by saying it's planning a new airliner that would fly by 2008,
>the effect has been lost on Leahy.
>Boeing's idea is to leapfrog Airbus's A330-200 airliner by bringing out a
>fuel-efficient, modern-technology airliner to carry between 200-250
>passengers and with a maximum range of nearly 15,000 kilometers.
>Boeing is betting that there will be increased demand for point-to-point
>flights and that the Dreamliner would respond to that demand. "It's purely a
>PR man's dream," said Leahy. "I think the
>traveling public knows that, too, which is probably why they voted for it,"
>in a name-picking scheme organized on the Internet by the U.S. company.
>"In fact," Leahy said, "it seems most of the people at Airbus who voted
>picked the Dreamliner. Some of the traditionalists voted for
>"Stratoclimber," which would have been a better name." "I was pretty much
>convinced that they would do it in recent months. But now I'm convinced
>they're not going to do it," the Airbus executive went on.
>"Why? Because now they're talking about the sexy shape of the windshield,
>the distinctive nose and the rake of the wingtip fences and how it will be
>distinguishable from other airplanes in the marketplace.
>And how people will just look at it and say: "Now!" Leahy recalled the five
>or six strenuous years when he and other Airbus executives fought endless
>battles to persuade Airbus's partners, shareholders, customer airlines and
>suppliers that the company's strategy of spending $10.7 billion
>to develop the A380 super-jumbo - the world's largest commercial jet was the
>right one.
>"But nobody ever said: "But what's the name?" or "You know, I think it needs
>to look sexier." "When someone starts doing that, it's because they're
>saying to themselves: "I've got a "me-too" product. I'm trying to leapfrog
>the A330-200 and what the engineers have just come up with looks an awful
>lot like my competitor's airplane.
>" Noting that Chicago, where Boeing is based, isn't too far from Detroit,
>Leahy said Boeing's
>strategy is "a bit like a bunch of guys in the 1960s in Detroit saying: "We
>can hold the Japanese off for a few more years.
>We've got to get those tailfins just a little bit higher, get a little bit
>more chrome, some really
>dynamite headlights, and the Japanese are going to be history, because
>everyone's going to want our new Cadillacs or whatever.
>And they went right off the edge of a cliff doing it." He said manufacturers
>tend to put a layer
>of "Gee-whizz and pizzasz" around their products when they're not capable of
>selling themselves. "When people do that, they're clutching at things.."
>Leahy poured scorn on the notion that people might buy commercial aircraft
>on impulse as they might a fancy car.
>"I hate to say this, as we're spending a lot of money to be here, but we are
>machine-tool makers. These are the machine tools of the air transport
>industry. They're sold on seat-mile costs, ton-mile costs, range, payload,
>environmental efficiency and fuel burn," and not on their looks, he said,
>adding: "That's not the way you buy machine tools." Leahy said that what
>convinced him that the Boeing project won't fly was Boeing's announcement
>that it was going to have a final assembly cycle of three days instead of 30
>days, a reduction of 90% compared to the norm in the business.
>"Why would you do that? Because the business case isn't working."
>Boeing's estimates for the potential market for the new airliner of up to
>3,500 aircraft are also unrealistic, he said, noting that sales of Boeing's
>767, which the Dreamliner is supposed to replace, only totaled 930 over the
>last 25 years. Leahy says he's so convinced the Dreamliner will never fly
>that he's starting taking wagers.
>He predicted that, if Boeing does launch the Dreamliner program, it will be
>a commercial flop as Airbus's competitor will have to amortize the $8
>billion development cost, which he said would automatically add $15 million
>to the sticker price and give Airbus an advantage because the development
>cost of the A330-200, which it is supposed to kill, was only $400,000 as it
>is a derivative of the A330-A340 family. He noted that the commercial
>aircraft industry is cyclical
>and that another cycle is likely in the middle of the next decade that will
>force Boeing and Airbus to have to invest large amounts eventually to renew
>their product lines. "If they bring out something that costs $8 billion in
>2008, they're not going to be around for the 2012-2015 cycle," he predicted
I assume Airbus responded to the preceding article like so...
2003: Exactly right...
2005: I mean oops...
2006: Augh $#@#$@$@#$!!!!