Fly-by-wire, used by Airbus, is more 'forgiving' of bad aircraft design.
You probably know both the A320-neo and the 737-max were extensions of their best-selling airframes in history - onto which they both cobbled larger high-bypass engines which run longer and more efficiently.
This is catnip to airlines so both firms took the quicker and cheaper route of selling an unstable aircraft.
What you probably don't know, is the A320-neo suffers from similar center-of-balance and pitch instability, from cobbling on the new engines up and forward, as with the 737-max.
onemileatatime.com - livemint.com
The problem in the A320-neo is currently being addressed with baggage loading limitations (and leaving the rear section of seats empty in Lufthansa planes which tipped the balance even further by moving the bathroom to the normally empty tail of the A320) while Airbus, like Boeing, is working on a software fix.
But the A320-neo is not grounded in the interim due to the fact this instability has not caused any reported problems, let alone any crashes.
The MCAS system as built was a clunky, intrusive and unexpected fly-by-wire add-on which should have required a lot of pilot training time. The A320 already being a fly-by-wire plane could more easily address the design instability, as with unstable military fighters which without flight computers would be unflyable..
Airbus was first to market with their A320-neo.
Following the introduction of the A320-neo in July 2014, Airbus garnered more than 6,500 orders.
Boeing's sales crew had grabbed more than 4,600 orders for their "vaporware" 737-max which didn't finally ship until 2017 /18.
Boeing management could have walked away from that initial $460 billion of orders for a bad plane, plus more to follow, but chose not to.
When the first 737-max crash occurred in late 2018, out of a fleet of roughly 100, the equally unstable A320-neo had been flying for four years with a fleet of 1,000 at the end of that period, without incident.
I think it's fair to say this GREEN is what Boeing management was unable to walk away from.
I'd guess roughly $10 Billion in net profit just over the two past years, as they book in advance of shipment, imagining far more to come without incident.
Wrong decision, but you can see at what price they're willing to consider making a bad choice.
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