If Boeing goes under, it will be because they didn't adapt to the market, vice deregulation.

Boeing should be building a 50-75 passenger regional jet like Bombardier, because that is where the world wide market is heading especially with the introduction of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums (RVSM) and Open Skies. These two processes allow reduced vertical separation in the high airline route structure (28,000 to 40,000 ft) and for countries to operate airline services from any point in one country to any point in another, or within the same. RVSM allows twice as many aircraft into the high route structure than as before due to reducing the separation of aircraft from 2000 vertical feet to 1000 feet. This is due to improvements in avionics and air traffic control systems. Open Skies allows point to point flights, this is possible due to GPS avionic flight systems. Before airliners had to fly from one electronic navigation ground reference point to the other. Now, with GPS the airlines takeoff and fly from one point to the next, direct to their destination.

A better grievence is that the large airlines have built alliances with the small commuter airlines that operate under their name brand umbrella. There are agreements between the pilot's union and the airlines that do not include the pilots and flight attendents that fly the Regional Jets. But, the airlines are operating more of the regional jets, more cheaply(but still safely), due to reduced labor and operating costs. Because, they pay the Regional Jet pilots and crew substantially less than the Major Airlines pilots and crew. Hence, the Regional Jet commuter airlines have a greater potential for profit than the majority of Major Airlines, which have a thin profit margin. The exceptions would be Southwest and Jet Blue, which have savy managers, whose business model was developed under the point to point philosphy that came with deregulation. So a few of the Major Airlines are taking advantage of the Regional Jets in order to make more money, outside of their specific corperation, while pressing for governmental tax advantages for their bloated, outdated business models. I usually fly Southwest. The future is small to medium regional jets flying point to point, across borders, vice massively large jets that fly to hubs. But, you have to admire the French's ability to not surrender on this issue.

You know, I grew up in Eugene and recall the pre-deregulation days of air travel. Know what? For everyone but business travelers it was really no different than today. You got in your car and drove to Portland if you wanted to fly to the east coast. Sure there was United Airlines (...was it United?) flying out of Mahlon Sweet Airport. But because tickets were already so pricey compared to today, no one on a middle-class budget paid the extra $ to fly out of Eugene.

So what's different today? Sure if you want to fly out of Eugene you can make connections to anywhere on the planet with an airport. So you can't get a non-stop to Chicago? How many people want to fly between Eugene and Chicago on a daily basis? Hardly enough to justify a permanent route or someone would already have established that flight.

I fly quite a bit in the Northwest and Alaska and frankly I like Horizon's approach the best. Gate to gate service for both you and your luggage. No messing around at ticket conters or baggage claim. I expect the most successful regional flights in the future will follow this model and keep the planes small so that the number of flights/day can be at a reasonable level. That's one of the big keys to Horizon's appeal. If you miss your flight there's another one in an hour or two usually and they just put you on the next flight with no fuss.

Although I feel for the employees and retirees of the major airlines who are getting or will get screwed by the bankruptcies, I really don't fear for the future of air travel. Until we build a giant web of high-speed bullet trains across the country, air travel is going nowhere.

And if the manufacturers want to sell planes, they'll figure out a way to do it by providing whatever financing/leasing packages are necessary to keep those planes rolling off the lines. If Boeing goes bankrupt it will be through the fault of its management, not because of deregulation. Someone else will buy up the pieces and take their place.

Interesting notes on airline deregulation in the U.S., and while that certainly plays into the financial instability of the U.S. airlines themselves, I don't think it has quite the impact on Boeing that you've presented here. What about the international market?

Worldwide air travel has seen explosive growth, and is expected to continue to do so for many years. Looking at Boeing's customer list for the 787, you'll see a lot of Asian airlines, which is where most of the passenger growth is expected.

By the way, the remark about Boeing being the only commercial aircraft manufacturer "left standing" is a bit misleading. It's the only company still producing commercial aircraft under its own name. McDonnell (Douglass) merged with Boeing, who discontinued their (competing) commercial aircraft production but took up their lucrative defense programs. Lockheed and Martin merged in 1995 and continue to be very active in the defense market but no longer produce commercial aircraft.

The risks involved in developing a new aircraft, either commercial or military, have primarily to do with the tremendous costs of development and the possibility at the end of the project that the end result will be rejected by potential clients (governments or airlines). That has less to do with whether the clients can pay, than whether the product meets their needs.

"If Boeing goes bankrupt it will be the consequences from congressionally inflicted 'deregulation' -- not competition from Airbus -- that drives it under."

I don't think that's true. If Boeing goes bankrupt it will be due to mismanagement of the company in a world-wide competitive environment. And a far more likely scenario than general bankruptcy of Boeing would be for the company to simply drop commercial aircraft development (which would likely be due to failure to compete with Airbus) and focus on defense projects, like the other major US aircraft manufacturers have had to do. By the way, I don't travel all that often, but whenever possible I try to fly Alaska/Horizon. I do like their service and especially the convenience on Horizon of gate checking/retrieval of bags. I wouldn't fly Southwest on a dare...   ;-)   But, apparently there are lots of people who disagree with me on that, they happen to be one of the very few profitable major airlines these days.

I have read that most large airports in the US and round the world will have to modify some of their loading and unloading gates to handle the much larger Airbus-380. The Boeing 787 is said to be far more fuel efficient and fits the current gate configurations at all major airports.

Boeing's sales prospects for 787s are expected to exceed Airbus for the near-term given the above advantages and current and future high fuel costs.

I go to extremes to avoid the airlines as a protest against gate taxes assessed on airfares to cover light rail expansion.

Oh, the A380 will require major modifications. Think about how long it takes to load a B 777, using even two jetways as most major airports do. The A380 will likely require that dual level jetways be constructed, which also probably means dual level lounges, etc. etc. Put it this way, LAX has already announced that in order to upgrade its facilities to accept the A380 would cost several hundred million $ at an absolute minnimum.

I go to extremes to avoid the airlines as a protest against gate taxes assessed on airfares to cover light rail expansion.

Huh? Do you avoid driving your car too? Because some of your fuel tax is paying for light rail also.

Although I'm no airline expert, I doubt that we'll see those giant A380s on anything but perhaps the largest volume trans-oceanic flights like between JFK and London. That sort of thing. Because it really makes no economic sense on smaller routes. Airlines are better off flying more flights per day between given destinations with smaller fuel efficient jets rather than less flights with giant planes. As Andy pointed out, these things will require major modifications just to dock. And once an airline goes to all that trouble the gate will probably be useless for other flights.

Then again, people probably said the same thing about the 747 when it was built.

Both Boeing and Airbus will fall with the end of of commercial airflight. High-speed trains and bicycles will rule in the era of expensive fossil fuel.

I think Boeing has hit a home run with the fuel efficient 787, and it would have to try very hard to go bankrupt despite the airlines' and Congress' incentives to prop it up. Russell made a great point about the airlines wanting to play Boeing and Airbus off each other. If one of them went bankrupt, another manufacturer would be created somewhere to take its place.

I have to disagree with Russell when it comes to deregulation. The legacy of the former regulated market was big, inefficient planes and higher costs. The new deregulated market is moving towards smaller more fuel efficient planes operating in a point to point system. The reason the market isn't evolving as fast as it should towards the new model is because there is too much capacity - too many old style airlines like US Airways and United that for some reason the government and the bankruptcy courts are going to great lengths to keep in operation. Also, the ban on foreign owned carriers for domestic flights. Why can't British Airways operate a flight from Portland to New York if it wants to? Because there's a government ban on it. More competition on domestic flights would shake out the airline industry, increase competition, and lower costs and prices for all.

Deregulation has made some things slightly less easy to do-like cross country nonstops from secondary cities, but has really improved the frequency to a lot of non-major cities aiports. Take Des Moines, IA as an example. There, there used to be at most a few flights per day to a few cities, now the frequency is way up and so in convience. Also, it costs about as much in dollars (not even counting inflation) to fly cross-country now as it did in the regulation days. This is good for the average traveler.

Another reason for Boeing's success in selling its new 787 aircraft is the decline in value of the US$ versus the euro$ which is a price reduction for US made goods.

There were three glaring techincal errors in this article I'd like to point out.

1. Airlines once played Douglas, Lockheed, McDonnell and Boeing off against one another

McDonnell was never a player in the commercial aircraft industry. Their focus was on military aircraft, and after the merger with Douglas, the McDonnell side retained it's military focus while the Douglas side retained it's commercial focus.

1. The plane is usually a 50-passenger Canada Regional Jet -- the CRJ 900 -- built in Canada by Bombardier.

The CRJ-900 is actually an 80 passenger aircraft, used only by Mesa Airlines on America West Express flights. The 50 seat aircraft I think you are referring to is the CRJ-200.

1. The major airlines are long gone from markets the size of Medford and Eugene although the names linger -- United Express and Continental Connection.

Continental Connection does not serve either Medford nor Eugene. SkyWest did recently provide Continental Connection service, but this was out of Houston, Texas, and SkyWest has recently been replaced by Colgan Air on this service. I believe this should be Delta Connection, which does serve both airports, and their service to Oregon is provided by SkyWest.

Also, I'd like to respond briefly to Tom Civiletti's comment:

Both Boeing and Airbus will fall with the end of of commercial airflight. High-speed trains and bicycles will rule in the era of expensive fossil fuel.

This is simply not a viable option. I don't see how either high-speed trains or bicycles can provide viable trans-oceanic service, say from New York to London or San Francisco to Tokyo. In my opinion, Boeing and Airbus will at some point (if they haven't already) have to begin research and development on alternative fuel powered aircraft.