McDonnell Douglas - The Last 10 Years

How do! :D

In 1997, Boeing made what was described at the time as a shrewd strategic acquisition, but has since been called a poisoned chalice, when the firm ended over half a century of domestic aircraft building rivalry through its purchase of McDonnell Douglas, once the dominant force behind American commercial aircraft construction with the highest market share in the world, but by the 1990s had fallen into third place behind the ever-present Boeing and the rapidly rising Airbus, with its prospects remaining bleak in a marketplace that could not accommodate three major manufacturers.

However, in this year-by-year account, we will be looking at the final decade of McDonnell Douglas's existence between 1987 and 1997, where the firm had every opportunity to save itself from its inevitable demise, but through compromises, labour disputes, poorly designed or underperforming models, and the unresolved whiff of corporate corruption, ensured that the future for the commercial aviation industry would be a two-horse race between America and Europe, but at the same time, these bad habits would translate into Boeing's ranks after the takeover, manifesting themselves in a devastating way over the following decades.

Chapters:

0:00 - Preamble
0:53 - Fall from First Place
4:18 - 1987 - MD-11 Launches
7:00 - 1988 - Resignations and Reworking
10:16 - 1989 - Movement in the Industry
14:54 - 1990 - The Downward Spiral Begins
19:49 - 1991 - Performance Targets and Not Meeting Them
25:45 - 1992 - Dreaming Big but Falling Behind
30:30 - 1993 - Enemy of the State
33:17 - 1994 - Going Outside the Family
35:43 - 1995 - Streamlining and Legal Challenges
41:22 - 1996 - The Final Year of Independence
45:03 - 1997 - The McDonnell Douglas Merger
53:15 - Strategic Acquisition or Drinking the Poisoned Chalice?
59:22 - Conclusion

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References:
- Key Aero (and their respective sources)
- New York Times (and their respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)