Airbus x boeing

Harvard Business School
Strategy Working Paper Series
Working Paper Number: 02-061
Working Paper Date: February 2002

“Airbus vs. Boeing in Super Jumbos: A
Case of Failed Preemption”
Benjamin Esty (Harvard Business School)
Pankaj Ghemawat (Harvard Business School

This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
Social Science Research Network electronic library at: http://ssrn.com/abstract_id=302452 Airbus vs. Boeing in Superjumbos:
A Case of Failed Preemption*

August 3, 2001
Rev. February 14, 2002
Benjamin C. Esty

Pankaj Ghemawat

Morgan 381

Morgan 227

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School

Boston, MA 02163

Boston, MA 02163

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Tel: [phone]

e-mail: [e-mail]

e-mail: [e-mail]

*Acknowledgements: Ramon Casadessus-Masanell, Bruno Cassiman, Richard Caves, Ken Corts, Tarun
Khanna, Julio Rotemberg, Vicente Salas Fumas, Xavier Vives and seminar/workshop participants at
Boston University, Copenhagen Business School, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, New York
University and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona provided helpful comments. So did senior executives at both Airbus (Adam Brown, John Leahy) and Boeing (Tim Meskill, Randy Baseler, and Jim Jessup), although their comments do not constitute an endorsement of the material in either the teaching case or this paper. We also gratefully acknowledge help from Ed Greenslet, Don Schenk, and The Airline Monitor in obtaining data and insights about the commercial jet aircraft industry, Mike Kane’s assistance in preparing the original teaching case, and financial support from the Division of Research at the Harvard Business
School.

Abstract

This paper looks at competitive interactions between Airbus and Boeing in very large aircraft. It concludes that Boeing attempted to preempt Airbus in introducing a new product in this space but failed to do so because of the incredibility, given the assumption of value