The Microeconomics of the Boeing 787

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The Microeconomics of the Boeing 787 Boeing launched the 787 Dreamliner in 2004 with the idea that airlines would seek more efficient but smaller aircraft instead of larger aircraft capable of carrying more passengers. Apparently, this gamble paid off as the Dreamliner became the fastest selling wide body aircraft ever (Johnston, 2012). This record may lead some to speculate that the 787 monopolizes the wide body aircraft market. But is it truly a monopoly? Does it have competition from any other manufacturer of wide body twin aisle aircraft? If there are substitutes for the 787 Dreamliner, how would it affect the cross elasticity for its demand? Literature Review The production of the Dreamliner was a departure from Boeings traditions (Peterson, 2011). Boeing chose to outsource a major percentage of the engineering and manufacturing of the Dreamliner. The intention was to reduce development cost from $10 billion to $6 billion and reduce development time from six to four years. Boeing was attempting to duplicate the supply chain of Toyota. But they did not maintain the same tight control over their suppliers as does Toyota. Boeing found that some of their suppliers did not have the expertise or the ability to manage their subcontractors. The end result of this was that Boeing had to step in and provide the engineering anyway. Boeing even had to purchase one of their major tier one suppliers to regain control. This action increased costs tremendously and delayed the first deliveries by 3 years (Denning, 2013). The delays have added to Boeings costs in the form of cash compensation for losses incurred by buyers (Kelly & Sugiyama, 2013). Boeing doesn’t publish sales or cost data for specific planes, but in an article written by Ostrower (2014), Joseph Nadol, (an analyst at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co) stated that “Boeing's unit costs for

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