Originally Posted by
threeighteen
that's all correct but not the point.
From a long term business perspective, Boeing needed a clean sheet narrow-body more than they needed short term sales. Now they're $20 billion plus in the hole, they still don't have a clean sheet narrowbody. They chose small short term profit over bigger long term profit and it kicked their ass.
Prior to the crashes both Boeing and Airbus had generated big sales numbers with their re-engined airplanes. Had Boeing designed the max as it is now the fleet wouldn’t have been grounded and they would be generating easy money from a reconfiguration of an existing type. Those sales would have had a big impact on long term profits while they took their time and produced a proper clean sheet design. They cost themselves billions and people died because they went cheap with the original design, not from listening to what their customers wanted. Giving up 8-10 years of sales to Airbus while they got a clean sheet design into production would have also had a long term impact on their finances.