An Amazing podcast series - Business Wars, Boeing vs Airbus

On a previous occasion I shared my thoughts on the Hershey’s vs Mars candy series on the Business Wars podcast. Today I am going to tell you about another awesome series on the same podcast show, which is produced by Wondery (check out the Business Wars podcast series here). This is a well told story about the behind the scenes of a great rivalry, Boeing vs Airbus and it spans over 7 episodes of 20 – 30 minutes each.

Boeing staked its lead early in this industry, largely through its initial partnership with Pan Am Airlines. The Airbus conglomerate was formed with the collaboration of France and Germany initially. England joined it later. Airbus got in the game to build a competitive alternative to Boeing. It took Airbus many years to overtake Boeing in terms of sales.

The Boeing vs Airbus story is about many things. It is about strategy. It is about government subsidies for aircraft manufacturers, World Trade Organization Agreements and potential trade wars. It is about airplane crashes and the aftermath of those. It is about the design and engineering issues faced by these companies and the challenges in dealing with different suppliers for their parts. It is about how each corporation developed plans for innovations such as the Super Jumbo, the Sonic Cruiser and the 787 Dreamliner. 

While, on the one hand the rivalry between these two giants, Boeing and Airbus, was good to spur innovation, at times it had the unfortunate consequences of creating a need to rush products to the market and the negative consequences were severe for products in regulated environments.

I highly recommend this series. The story telling is amazing and it is similar to listening to multiple business school case studies. Enjoy the series and please let me know what you think of it in the comments.