Agreed. But the underlying issue still has not been addressed by Boeing. Who is still mired in MD management and now living with the consequences.

The reason we have this much growth on the 737 is because Boeing had a buy 2 get 1 free sale. Nothing about capabilities or comfort, but all about the money.

You can't built $50M+ airplanes that you don't already know your customers will buy. The customers would have bought Airbus neos.

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.

Boeing started out planning a clean-sheet design to replace the 737 in 2006. The airlines (particularly AAL) wanted a re-engined 737 so that they could have the more efficient design sooner, at lower cost, and as a common fleet with their existing 737s. It was AAL's 2011 order that forced Boeing to drop the new design in favor of the MAX.

It's all there, with references, in the wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Background

If the airlines wanted a clean-sheet design, Boeing was ready to built it.

And my point is, yes the airlines wanted a 737 with new engines, but Boeing still could have said, "nah, this fleet is done, we're going to design something that isn't such a POS and will fit your needs better, and be even more efficient. If you want to bail to Airbus that's fine, but your competitors will be flying our new narrowbody with better margins before you ever get a delivery slot on your Airbus order. Your move"

Boeing failed to remember that they hold/held 50% of the duopoly and instead caved to their customers.

The 737 MAX is a $20+ billion dollar corporate blunder. The customer doesn't always know what they want, sometimes you need to tell them.

The Max as originally designed was a blunder. The Max as it is now delivers exactly what was demanded. Same with the NEO. They both provide massive fuel savings without forcing airlines to take on the cost of a new fleet type, and both were available much faster than waiting for a clean sheet design to reach certification and production. What we want to fly is irrelevant. The bean counters or pax don’t care about the same things that we do. The airlines requested a large increase in efficiency with their current fleets and both manufacturers delivered. The pax for the most part just want to get from A to B on time and at a good price. Most of the complaining on sites like this seem to come from pilots who are upset that their employer picked something that they don’t want to bid, not from a business perspective considering revenue and cost.

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.