How Boeing Lost Its Moat in Commercial Aviation

Business Strategy Talks with Fexingo: Competitive Advantage, Market Positioning, and Growth Planning · May 30, 2026 · 7m · transcript

For decades, Boeing held an unassailable competitive advantage in commercial aerospace: engineering culture, regulatory trust, and a near-duopoly with Airbus. But a series of self-inflicted wounds — the 737 MAX crisis, production quality failures, and a shift from engineering-led to finance-led management — eroded that moat so severely that Boeing now faces an existential threat from its own legacy. In this episode, Lucas and Luna trace how Boeing's moat was built, where it crumbled, and whether it can ever be rebuilt. They zero in on the specific 1997 McDonnell Douglas merger as the…