INNOBLOG

One of the most fascinating sustaining battles is taking place in the airline industry, between Boeing and Airbus. Chalk a point up for Boeing today, as Airbus announced delays of up to 6 months on its A380 super-jumbo jet. The cause? Manufacturing issues.

In battles of sustaining innovations, there are always two things to watch:

1) Has the company picked the right undershot dimension along which to optimize?
2) Can it execute flawlessly?

Boeing and Airbus are placing fundamentally different bets on the dimension of improvement that customers need. Airbus is betting on sheer size with its 550+ seat A380. Boeing is betting on efficiency, with its in-development 787 Dreamliner significantly more efficient than any existing model.

Airbus had a big time-to-market lead over Boeing, but further delays like this one might whittle that away.

Of course, our perspective has always been consistent -- even the "winner" of this battle might end up the loser as disruptive players such as regional jet and microjet manufacturers transform the industry. Regardless, this one will be an interesting one to watch!