BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek March 1, 202112
COURTESYAIRBUS.DATA:AIRBUS;BOEING○ The European aerospace giant bets a small-plane lineup will help it soar past its rivalAirbus Has a Post-Pandemic Flight Plan
4 to 12 weeks, will likely provide answers more
quickly than completing new trials.
A spokesman for Astra highlighted the analysis
published in February, which showed the vaccine
is more than 70% effective after one dose and
more than 80% after two, using a three-month
dosage interval.
Despite the lack of clarity, one important statis-
tic has remained high: the Astra shot’s level of pro-
tection against severe disease, hospitalization, and
death. Data taken from hundreds of thousands of
vaccinated people in Scotland the week of Feb.
found the vaccine reduced hospitalization by 94%.
The efficacy of the shot “has not been clearly
conveyed, with different numbers relating to dif-
ferent schedules, different intervals,” says David
Salisbury, former director of immunization at the
U.K.’s department of health. But “the takeaway
that needs to be reinforced is that AstraZeneca
vaccine recipients are saved from severe disease
and death, and that is the most important aspect.”
The threat of viral variants has further plagued
the vaccine. Oxford said in February that the shot
provides as much protection from symptomaticEvery morning, Airbus SE Chief Executive Officer
Guillaume Faury scans global air traffic data before
checking in with carriers, suppliers, and the leas-
ing companies that keep aircraft deliveries ticking
along, even during a time of unprecedented crisis.
Although the numbers make for grim reading,
this meticulous approach has given Faury an unvar-
nished view of the aviation industry and the con-
tours of life after the pandemic. This much is clear:
Travel patterns have changed fundamentally, and
so will aircraft requirements. The biggest planes
serving long routes will be the last to return to
the skies as carriers favor shorter trips with small
aircraft that are nimble and fuel-efficient. Those
trends could favor Airbus, which keeps expanding
its popular A320 family of jetliners and is consid-
ering a hydrogen-powered model for smaller dis-
tances by 2035.
Archrival Boeing Co. remains restrained by the
recent grounding of its top-selling 737 Max follow-
ing two deadly crashes and production flaws withTHE BOTTOM LINE With questions surrounding its efficacy, less
than 15% of the Astra-Oxford vaccine delivered to Germany has
been given to patients. Success in the U.S. could ease the doubts.“We have to be
very careful
with the ‘it will
never work’
attitude, which
has proven so
many times to
be wrong”infection against a key variant first identified in the
U.K. as it does against the original strain. But data
from the Oxford trial’s South African arm showed
the shot had only 22% efficacy against mild and
moderate illness from the dominant variant there.
There is no data on whether the vaccine
provides protection against severe disease from
that variant. A top adviser to the South African
government proposed the week of Feb. 15 that
the country give doses to 100,000 people as
a way to determine whether it’s effective in
curbing hospitalization.
Despite its setbacks, the Astra-Oxford vac-
cine is set to play a valuable role globally, says
Anna Bezruki, a researcher at the Global Health
Centre at the Graduate Institute of International
and Development Studies in Geneva. “We don’t
have many tools right now,” she says. “It could
not only save lives but reduce a lot of strain on
health-care systems.” —Suzi Ring, James Paton,
and Flavia Rotondi, with Naomi Kresge and Tim Lohanother cash cow, the 787 Dreamliner. It’s also
trying to introduce a massive widebody airliner, the
777X, which is three years late. Airline customers
have cooled on big aircraft they’ll probably strug-
gle to fill, particularly with business travel likely to
remain subdued for years.
“We’re quite lucky that the change coming
from the pandemic is fitting with today’s prod-
uct lineup,” Faury says, referring to Airbus’s stable
of jets.
The Airbus-Boeing rivalry has long been about
the first-mover’s advantage and the other side’s
comeback. But the courses of the two players in
the global plane-making duopoly have diverged
in recent years, and the split has only deepened in
the pandemic.
Both companies need to make decisions in the
next few years that stand to shape the competi-
tion well into the next decade and beyond, yet
they’re doing so from very different starting posi-
tions. Boeing can’t afford another misstep after002200202202020220000002022022000200202200220022020220002222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222111111111111111111111111111111111111