Boeing *ALMOST* Built the 757 MAX....

the Boeing 757 has had an unconventional life While most planes are a hit when they first enter the market and fade in popularity over time the 757 has done the complete opposite becoming a hot commodity in its old age today many airlines still cling to 757s that were built decades ago and it begs the question if the jet is so popular why didn't Boeing build a 757 Max well as it turns out they almost did let me explain foreign before hopping into it I just recently got back from the Paris Air Show and do you want to know how much it costs to fly to Paris right now nearly two thousand dollars in coach I don't know about you but I just feel like the global economy doesn't make any sense nowadays and the stock market reflects that it's been on a roller coaster which can obviously hurt investors but through all of this turbulence fine art has seemingly held steady over the past few years art as an asset class has seen its value increase and Masterworks today's sponsor is making Fine Art investing accessible to everyone Masterworks buys renowned pieces from artists like Banksy and splits them into shares for people to buy and they've been on a roll just recently they sold a piece for a near 18 gain this adds to a string of recent exits that saw 10 13 and 35 percent net returns of course past performance isn't a guarantee of future results and this isn't financial advice but it seems Masterworks is doing something right and while availability is often limited my viewers can get Priority Access to their platform simply use my link in the description to do so first let's talk about what makes the 757 special Pilots often refer to it as the sports car of the Skies thanks to its unique performance attributes equipped with a super critical wing and oversized engines the plane Thunders down runways and gets Airborne quickly this exceptional agility means it can fly into performance constrained airports airports that either have short runways or are located at higher elevations but while Pilots love how it handles Airlines love its mix of range and capacity the 757's two distinct variants can seat anywhere from 180 to 240 passengers and can fly up to 4 000 nautical miles this means it can serve long thin Roots like Newark to Stockholm and Seattle to keflavik and until very recently it was the only plane on Earth that had these traits making it the world's sole mid-market jet now in recent years mid-market missions have exploded in popularity once overlooked Airlines now see them as an organic way to grow their networks and since the 757 is the only jet that serves this segment it's far outlived its intended lifespan in 2019 60 of all 757s were still in service even though it was designed in the 70s and major carriers like United and Delta whose 757s are now over 25 years old on average have no explicit plans to phase them out considering its Newfound popularity it begs the question why didn't Boeing update the 757's design after all the ones flying today are gas guzzling dinosaurs surely a more efficient 757 Max would be a Smash Hit so what gives well believe it or not Boeing almost did build a 7-5 7 max back in the 90s at the time Boeing was at a bit of a Crossroads sure it was the Undisputed king of Aviation but its dominance was being challenged by a European upstart known as Airbus now the most important tool in airbus's commercial lineup was the A320 a brand new single aisle jet that sported a myriad of Innovations and Against All Odds the plane was slowly eating in to 757 sales but hold on a second the 757 in A320 aren't really competitors are they well technically no the A320 family is a bit smaller and has less range than the 757 that means it can't fly those long thin roots that make the 757 unique the problem Boeing was facing though was that the mid-market Renaissance had yet to arrive long thin missions just weren't very popular back then and most carriers didn't need the 757's versatility what they did need was efficiency and that's something the A320 absolutely delivered estimates suggest that the A320 can be over 5 percent more efficient than the 757 which airlines saw as a worthwhile trade-off it didn't take long for the A320 to quickly overtake the 757 in sales and this was a big problem for Boeing after all single aisle aircraft are and always have been their greatest source of Revenue suffice it to say their market dominance was being threatened clearly Boeing had to do something and they had two options to strike back at Airbus one they could upgrade these 757 or two they could revamp the older 737 let's break down the benefits of pursuing each option first up the 757 as I just noted the 757 beats the A320 in both range and takeoff performance the one obvious drawback of this approach was the 757's capacity Boeing would have had to shrink it to compete head-on but honestly that wouldn't have been all that hard Boeing had already evaluated a smaller 757-100 during early program development meaning they had a good idea of how to make that plane a reality so at the end of the day it seemed like building a 757 Max was a pretty safe option to better compete with the A320 okay now let's turn our attention to option number two redesigning the 737 now the 737 was originally intended to be a Regional Jet and as a result early 737 variants lagged the A320 in practically every measurable way it was smaller it had much less range and it was considerably slower if Boeing moved forward with this option it would have to spend a lot of time and effort redesign finding it suffice it to say this would be a costly and risky Endeavor so what did Boeing end up doing well they took the harder riskier and more resource intensive approach redesigning the 737 instead of the 757 why on Earth would they do that well before telling you why I recently noticed that 80 percent of the people watching this video still aren't subscribed to the channel so if you're one of those people and you're enjoying this breakdown please hit that button and Bell so you can see more videos like this in the near future it really helps me out a lot thanks okay so why did Boeing take the harder path well it turns out the 737 had one massive advantage over the 7-5-7 its price remember Airbus was still a new player when the A320 hit the market and to get customers in the door they were offering Blockbuster discounts and a 757 Max would have really struggled to match those prices some of the 757's defining features like its massive engines and double bogey landing gear don't come cheap the upshot is that a 757 costs a lot more to build than an A320 this was reflected in its list price the 757-200 was listed for about 10 million dollars more than the a321 despite being roughly the same size if Boeing had built a 757 Max it's almost certain that Airbus would continue to undercut them on price which would be a huge competitive advantage now these cost concerns didn't really exist with the 737 that aircraft with its low profile shorter gear and smaller engines was pretty cheap to build and Boeing could also turn them out at a higher rate by 1990 Boeing was building 15 a month compared to just eight seven five sevens sure Boeing would need to do more upfront work to modernize the 737s design but at the end of the day the 737 could match the a320s massive discounts negating one of airbus's biggest advantages ultimately this helps to explain Boeing's decision while the 757 would have been an easier plane to work with circumstances demanded that the 737b updated instead and it's hard to argue they made the wrong choice this new 737 known as the 737 NG was a Smash Hit It sold over 7 000 units during its run of production making a at one of the most successful aircraft families in history okay so now we know why Boeing decided against building a 757 Max back in the 90s but what about today the mid Market segment has clearly evolved and grown since the 757 was introduced so if Boeing Revisited the plane surely it would sell like hotcakes right well probably not you see while the 757 is the only mid-market chat in service today that won't be the case for very long come 2024 Airbus will introduce its own mid-market solution the a321 XLR in the XLR Airbus has kind of pulled an UNO reverse while Boeing once pondered downsizing the 757 to compete with the A320 Airbus is now upsizing the A320 to compete with the 757 the XLR matches the 757's capacity and actually beats its range and since it was first to Market it's already racked up tons of orders meaning a hypothetical 757 Max would be left fighting for scraps but let's pretend for a second that the XLR didn't exist even if the mid-market segment was wide open for the taking Boeing still wouldn't build a 757 Max because they couldn't you see once the 737 NG was launched the 757 fell into temporary obsolescence by the year 2000 demand was practically non-existent and in 2004 Boeing shuttered production this means that all the tooling all the factory space and all the expertise that's needed to actually build a 757 has been lost and re-establishing the supply chain would be a massive logistical hurdle likely costing billions of dollars and at that point it just makes way more sense for Boeing to build a clean sheet mid-market chat so at the end of the day Boeing did have a chance to build a 757 Max and they almost seized that opportunity and very nearly brought the jet to life but at the end of the day the market conditions of the time forced them to take a different route and ultimately the 757 Max never saw the light of day so what do you guys think should Boeing have built a 757 Max or was the 737 NG at the right call let me know your thoughts in the comment section below oh and by the way I recently interviewed Boeing's VP of commercial marketing we talked all about the mid-market Gap that's been left by the 757 and how Boeing plans to address it in addition we talked about some other cool stuff like the 787 freighter and the triple 7-10 if you're interested in checking out that discussion I'll leave a link to the video in the upper right and right below that like button thank you so much to my patrons for helping to make the this video possible if you like what I do and want to help the channel grow go ahead and check out this link right here and as always if you learned something new today leave a like And subscribe to keep learning and until I see you again don't forget to look up

Channel: Coby Explanes

Views: 309,148

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Id: 9OlXFrd3bVQ

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023