Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners Path: news From: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM (Karl Swartz) Subject: The Sporty Game -- Boeing 757 References: Message-ID: Approved: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM Organization: Chicago Software Works X-Original-Message-ID: <1992Nov24.115042.26779@ohare.Chicago.COM> Sender: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 11:50:42 GMT In article Christopher Davis writes: >Karl> == Karl Swartz > Karl> Probably the best general interest discussion of the DC-10 and > Karl> all its problems is in The Sporty Game, by John Newhouse (Alfred > Karl> A. Knopf, New York, 1982). >_The Sporty Game_ tends to show its age in other areas as well; the dire >predictions of market failure for the 747, 757, and 767 have not quite >been borne out by intervening events :) The 757 was doing rather weakly for quite a while, however. The huge orders in the past few years from American, United, and United Parcel have contributed mightily to the 757's success. I recently re-read this book and one thing I found fascinating was the discussion of the 757 and how it was the wrong aircraft -- it should have had about 30 fewer seats, which is what everyone wanted. Everone except British Airways, that is, and Boeing wanted desperately to sell to BA in the hopes of keeping the UK out of Airbus. They won the battle, as it were, but lost the war. In more ways than one, since not only did the UK link up with Airbus (despite BA's purchase of the 757) but Boeing was left without a well-positioned replacement for the 727 ... and Airbus *did* develop one, in the form of the A-320. All of this was particularly interesting as I was reading it right as United announced their A-320 order, rejecting Boeing's offerings as either too big (the 757) or inadequate on a variety of counts (the 737-400) for the intended job of replacing the 727-200. Fascinating to see how decisions made 15 years ago are still so clearly relected in today's market. I'm *still* surprised that Boeing hasn't made much noise (maybe none) about plugging this obvious hole by offering a 757-100 or whatever -- a shortened 757 like the original proposal and a real replacement for the 727-200. Even with United it never seemed to come up, instead all the discussion focussing on a massively stretched and pulled and re- designed 737-600. True, a 757 is more expensive (~ $45 million versus $30 - 35 million) but the changes embodied in the 737-600 would surely have added tremendously to the price. -- Karl Swartz |INet kls@ditka.chicago.com 1-415/854-3409 |UUCP uunet!decwrl!ditka!kls |Snail 2144 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park CA 94025, USA Send sci.aeronautics.airliners submissions to airliners@chicago.com