Outflank, Outfox, Outmaneuver: Disruptive Strategies, Tactics and Game Changer Market Moves in Commercial Aviation: The Jet Age

In the early 1960s, Pratt & Whitney, with a clear head start, had an almost dominant market position in the commercial aircraft engines market while GE lagged behind by a fair margin. However, a GE engineer, Gerhard Neumann, was tired of losing to Pratt, and chose to shake things up and change the status quo effectively. Neumann, along with a team of GE engineers, created the GE1, a revolutionary aircraft engine demonstrator, by mating a huge diameter fan to a relatively much smaller, efficient engine core, which resulted in significant fuel efficiency gains, a key determinant of engine selection by the airlines.

The GE1, subsequently, became the building block for more than a dozen GE commercial & military engines over the subsequent decades and scripted & spearheaded GE’s almost legendary comeback and eventual leadership of the commercial aircraft engines market with GE effectively outflanking, outmaneuvering and comprehensively beating Pratt & Whitney at its own game for decades to come, with revolutionary engines like the CF6, which virtually transformed the wide body aircraft market and is still in production after over half a century, and over a dozen other engines, including the legendary F110, which effectively got GE back into the fighter jets game from behind, and the iconic CFM56, which is the undisputed industry gold standard for engine reliability & performance in the narrow body aircraft market, even today. Further, GE Aviation’s headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio was subsequently renamed to ‘1 Neumann Way’, in his honor, and stays that way even today.

This is not a book about GE or any other, specific industry player; but rather about similar strategy masterstrokes & tactical brilliance by companies and illuminated minds in commercial aviation, across the aircraft & engine OEMs levels on the industry’s supply side, since the onset of the jet age. Full of practical lessons, insights and real-life examples in disruptive market strategies & tactics, and with commercial aviation as the perfect backdrop; it is quintessentially a strategy guide and playbook for market disruption, customized specifically for commercial aviation, while also being an honest & humble effort to pay tribute to brilliant minds from a bygone era.

If you are an Aviation enthusiast or professional with a passion for flight and are almost smitten by Strategy; then, this is the supersonic flight, back into time, you just can’t afford to miss…Hop-In!

Excerpts:

1. How Boeing disrupted the commercial aviation market at the dawn of the jet age with the self-funded 707 and how it created and changed Commercial Aviation history forever.
2. How GE & CFMI took a huge gamble by developing the CFM56 engine, without any customer orders or a specific use case in the 1970s, and how they pulled it off, incredibly, as the CFM56, a superb engine but with no orders and takers initially, ultimately became a virtual market hegemon.
3. Airbus’ incredible story of taking on a much bigger rival, Boeing, in the narrow body aircraft market; virtually as a rookie, with the A320 in the early-to-mid 1980s, in an almost David vs.Goliath style aerial warfare, to becoming an equal and worthy rival by the turn of the century, scripted by a playbook of unconventional market tactics spearheaded by a true sales maverick.
4. How Boeing truly outflanked, outfoxed & outmaneuvered Airbus in the wide body market in the early 2000s with its classic pincer movement executed brilliantly against the A380 with its 787and the 747-8.
5. How Airbus effectively exploited a glaring gap in Boeing’s product line-up in the Middle-of-the-Market, in almost a blue ocean style strategy move, by developing the longer-range variants of its A321neo program, namely, the A321LR & A321XLR, which has ensured a sustained competitive advantage and almost unchallenged segment dominance for Airbus with an over 80% market share since 2018.