Originally Posted by
threeighteen
Yes you can, and in fact, those were some of Boeings best-ever designs.
Many customers bought Airbus NEOs because the NEO beat the max to the market anyway. The airbus order slots were already booked up... Boeing felt time pressure, but in fact they had plenty of time.
Boeing needed to do a clean sheet, period. They didn't, and it ended up costing them more than developing two clean sheet planes.
Both Boeing and Airbus could have used clean sheet designs, much more so for Boeing. When Airbus announced the NEO, Boeing needed a quick fix and didn’t have time for the 8-10 years to get a new design into production. Had they built the Max as it is now, they would have avoided having their top selling aircraft grounded. It might not be what pilots prefer to fly, but the Max 9 hauls 179 passengers on just under 5,000 lbs per hour. The Neo delivers similar numbers. Boeing couldn’t wait for development of a clean sheet design while the competition was offering a common fleet with a 16% fuel burn advantage.