The Flight of innovation: a comparative analysis of Airbus and Boeing Competition

Abstract

This thesis wants to analyse the 53 years long competition between the world’s leading aircraft manufacturers, Airbus and Boeing.

Starting from the birth of Boeing in 1916, this thesis goes through the slow growth that allowed the firm to conquer the majority of the US market and across the increasing thigh competition, started after the Airbus foundation in 1970, which allowed the latter to undermine the rival’s dominant position.

The thesis retraces almost all of the history of aircraft development, highlighting the continuous innovations, the strategic decisions and the failures of the two firms that produce together up to 90% of commercial aircraft worldwide.

This analysis will give high importance, along with the historical perspective, to the role and the effects of innovations, not only those applied to planes, like pressurisation, turbojet engines or flight-by-wire, but also those associated with changes in the sale strategy, the HR management or the supply chain, and in general to the development of a firm capable of keeping up with a constantly growing and evolving sector.

By doing so, the thesis aims to prove that Airbus is winning the competition because it maintained, through the years, the same innovative capabilities that were behind its birth in 1970.