Comment by sho | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sho | Hacker News Reader

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In order to have a valid complaint, Boeing had to identify a "Domestic Like Product", which was indeed the 737-700 and 737 MAX 7, capable of carrying 126 and 138 passengers respectively, comparable to the C300's capacity. That part of it is true. The aspect in which boeing's product does not compete is that the 737 is a 50-year-old frame by now, whereas the C300 is a modern and technologically far advanced design. Needless to say, Boeing did not over-emphasise that point in their submission.

Boeing's complaint is actually factually correct and pretty much rock solid. BBD is indeed being subsidised via tax breaks and sweetheart loans from its various interested governments, and it did indeed sell the airframes to Delta at well below cost. The trouble is that Boeing does exactly the same thing all the time.

These kind of tactics are, regrettably, par for the course in competition between Boeing and Airbus. I think the main reason everyone is pissed off at Boeing is not only that the C300 is inarguably a profoundly superior product to Boeing's ageing cash cow, but they're employing their most ruthless "nuclear" legal tactics against a company so much smaller than them, in a friendly, neighbouring country, which is a customer to boot! At the very least, it's not very gentlemanly. It's pretty rich to shriek about "predatory behaviour" from a company a hundredth their size.

For anyone interested, the public version of the complaint is available here: https://leehamnews-5389.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04...

Your characterization that the 737 is a 50-year old airframe and wouldn't compete with the CS300 is entirely inaccurate.

Boeing just keeps the same model numbers for a series of aircraft, but through gradual evolution of sub-models the newest 737 MAX that exists today is an entirely different plane from the original 737-100 released in 1966.

Just look at this specification table for the different models on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Specifications

Pretty much the only thing that's the same is that the fuselage is the same diameter. Everything else from length, height, wing span, passenger count & even how fast it cruises has changed over the years. It now has over twice the range that it did in 1966.

Secondly just because two aircraft aren't exactly the same size doesn't mean they aren't competing for the same market. As an example no airline sits down and decides they need a plane that carries exactly 150 passengers, and 180 would be out of the question.

Instead they look at the overall price, efficiency etc. Maybe they'll buy a smaller plane and run more flights per day, rather than a bigger plane with fewer flights.

You can trivially see this by looking at the multitude of airframes you can choose to fly with between pretty much any two major international airports.

> Your characterization that the 737 is a 50-year old airframe and wouldn't compete with the CS300 is entirely inaccurate.

Of course the 737 has been updated over the years but it's still fundamentally the same frame and has numerous drawbacks over newer models:

- it's aluminium, not composite, so is much heavier than the C300, meaning worse fuel efficiency per pax, and will have smaller windows, less comfortable cabin air pressure, etc

- it sits too low to the ground to carry the most efficent high-bypass turbofans - again less fuel efficient

- again because it's so low to the ground, the MAX 10 is so tail-heavy some (most?) airlines have passed on it in fear of tailstrikes and load restrictions at the gate

- still not fully fly by wire AFAIK

and the list goes on. You're right that it's been refreshed over the years but even boeing wants to replace it with a clean sheet design, just as the composite 787 has replaced the 767. Advancements have been made and eventually you just need a new frame.

Another factor in favour of the C300 is that it's optimised for its load capacity. The 737-7 (and a318/9 for that matter) are shrinks of their design and thus carry too much wing & superstructure for comparable loads. This again increases weight and reduces cost effectiveness.

Even the mass media has been saying that if the C300 gets a foothold into the US market that Boeing may be forced to invest in a clean sheet new frame to effectively compete, and they're right.

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