Customer Reviews

Flight of the Titans: Boeing, Airbus and the Battle for the Future of Air Travel

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Despite the title, this book is more of an Airbus history than it is about the marketplace competition between the two title contenders. There are several technical errors and inconsistencies, but this seems to be par for the course for aviation industry books and they don't distract greatly from the main discussion.

The author should be commended for getting to the core of Airbus' raison d'etre: that Airbus is not so much about making airplanes as it is about creating aerospace industry jobs for Europeans. The author also touches on a very revealing insight into Airbus' motivation when he quotes a BAe Airbus official as saying: "even if we don't make a penny (on the A3XX), it would still be worth it because it would stop Boeing from having a monopoly with the 747." Unfortunately, he fails to delve further into this "I can bleed more than you" business strategy! What successful business today is run with this kind of punitive strategy? This appears as a great lost opportunity for this volume, in my opinion. Another area that I found lacking was the Airbus decision making strategy that resulted in Toulouse being selected as the final assembly site for the A380 over the port city of Hamburg. I was left with the impression that the author didn't want to air too much dirty Airbus laundry in the end. Finally, the book suffers from the timing of recent events. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight we can see that delaying publication by just a few months would have allowed coverage of the recent production delays, management resignations and threatened A380 order cancellations. Of course the author cannot be held accountable for this.

In general, I would not recommend this book to serious students of the commercial aviation industry - it offers very little new insight.

Kemp is a British writer that makes an effort to understand the battle between Boeing and Airbus. He did plenty of interviews with top people in both organizations and was one of the first to publish a book on the subject. There have been many more since than and each one gets better. Two flaws with the Kemp book are his bias towards Airbus and his narrow look at business strategy. He comes close to showing that Airbus and Boeing were hedging against the others strengths by developing several models of planes. In the end though he jumps back to his analysis of the dreamliner vs. the A380 and does not look at the wider market of the companies. As the book progresses forward the analysis does get better and the real competition becomes apparent. The salesmanship of the Airbus team against the engineering of the Boeing. The size of Airbus vs. the speed of Boeing are all played out through this struggle. The book jumps around quite a bit but it does provide a good start for the time it was published. I do recommend this book but just be warned the beginning is slow and the analysis could be a little more focused.

First let me state that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which entertained me for the better part of an intensive session that lasted four consecutive days.

As an avid reader of Aviation Week for the past 29 years, and a professional of the aviation sector, I could have been easily bored by this book. Instead I was absolutely captivated. This work is first and foremost a summarized history of Airbus recounted via the testimony of one of it's main architect, Roger Beteille. Especially for the first part of the book. As we progress forward we also learn a lot about Boeing and the internal workings of the commercial aviation business.

Throughout the book we find a string of factual statements that should please any aviation buff. It is not too technical, certainly less than I would have liked, but remains accessible to a large public. What makes it entertaining are the numerous anecdotes that spice this piece of history of contemporary commercial aviation. It always sheds a remarkably balanced viewpoint and the author is never judgemental when it comes to relating embarrassing stories. Some might say that the treatment leans a bit in favor of Airbus. I believe it simply reflects that period when Airbus was the underdog. And it was a thrill to watch the student (Airbus) surpass the master (Boeing). But as we now know Boeing has since made a comeback.

I do have some reservation about the writing style. Sometimes it sounds like an amalgam of previously published articles tied together more or less coherently. Because of that the book lacks fluidity and coherency and makes for a jagged reading. Those quibbles aside, this is a fine story.