Native-born Seattleites such as I tend to reflexively favor Boeing aircraft. It's hard not to develop such loyalty when half your childhood friends had Boeing-employed parents. I grew up checking each plane that flew overhead to see if it was "one of ours" or a competitor's.
But my regard for the Seattle jet maker is tarnished substantially now, because Boeing, not its current rival Airbus, is wearing the black hat in the present airplane-sale wars.
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The 7E7 is billed, by Boeing, as a nimble, efficient, versatile plane that makes a huge leap in fuel efficiency over its predecessors. The A380 is billed, by Boeing, as a gluttonous behemoth — two stories and 555 seats.
But the Airbus plane is actually the more efficient in energy use, per passenger mile.
The fundamental difference is this: Airbus, like the European societies that have given rise to it, has accepted the need to avert climate change. It expects the need to minimize greenhouse gas emissions actually to change human behavior over the next two decades. It expects, for example, that through either regulation or taxation, the cost of burning jet fuel at high altitudes will rise substantially.
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