Will The Max Come Back?

Yes and no! Yes it will to save Boeing, and no it won't pave way for its future. Originally, Boeing built a flawed 737 design from the sixties it was too low slung to the ground to allow flexibility and its been a mess to get the body in balance and now we have  a Max as its opus from the problem bin for which Boeing refuses to let go of. Perhaps this last episode is its last episode of problems. Can't tell how deep corporate stupidity will inhabit Boeing thinking out of its pride.

The time is now for Boeing to start its new single aisle campaign for 2030 and peddle the Max as a gap filler of technology and advancements over its family of aircraft. The Max or single-aisle family needs new geometry, engines and capacity for innovations to come. You can't keep painting lip stick on a pig and call it Max. Boeing broke the single aisle concept back in the 1960's and it just is now fifty years later expressing a need for a clean sheet in its class.

Boeing is searching for  a special single-aisle name going forward for which it can hang decades of marketing upon. Max the pig won't cut it, but but evolution says it all.

Critical Decision Slow 777X Progress

Qantas had been on the cusp of announcing its Project Sunrise winner and the lean was towards a Boeing product. But the 737 Max has choked Boeing into re-prioritizing its ventures and hence the 777X is at a crawl back in the shop. Boeing will fix the Max in 2020 and it will fly the 777X in 2020 but the 797 has become only a Boeing dream since the Max has been its market loss in service and it will take a "successful venture" to change this perspective.

There you have it, Boeing has flummoxed itself by lining its pocket with money before making a complete product. It forgot its main function as an aircraft builder. Build it right for the customer and the money will follow. Don't follow the money when building an airplane! Boeing will become viable as a major airplane maker when its commercial widebody division succeeds and by not waiting for the single-aisle to fix itself in the meantime.

The 737 Max is not dead but it needs a resurrection. Boeing may as well go ahead and build a clean sheet single-aisle as it has lost the market single-aisle parity. Shoot for 2028 for entry into service for a Max killer to dominate the single-aisle segment. This would include a long-range two hundred seats configured A321 killer. Boeing has already thought this through but it may have trouble convincing its stockholders on a 2028 single-aisle build risk but Boeing has put itself into a precarious defensive position and it will fight rather than delay indefinitely while fixing its problems.