The Boeing 737 is one of the most popular airliners of all time, serving as a versatile and capable platform for short-haul routes around the world. For decades, there was little doubt about the 737’s merits that won it order after order, but the type has become more controversial with the release of the fourth-generation 737 MAX. The MAX is infamous for two crashes in 2018 and 2019 that were largely attributed to its updated design, resulting in a roughly 20-month worldwide grounding. But in addition to the crashes, there’s also debate about the aircraft’s existence in the first place.
The 737 is the oldest commercial airliner on sale, and this comes with limitations that have hampered its recent market performance. The real controversy is that the manufacturer had another, newer narrowbody type, the Boeing 757, that was seemingly better suited to address the narrowbody market’s shift, and yet it killed off the 757 in 2004. However, the 757 had never been a major seller for Boeing and was designed to serve a completely different mission profile from what the market wants today.
The 737’s Market Challenges Today
The 737 was originally designed to serve as a large regional jet in the 1960s and proved successful in this role. With the 737 Classic in the 1980s, the aircraft grew in size and gained range, while the 737NG that debuted in the late 1990s became even larger and more capable. With the 737NG, the plane’s competition evolved from the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 to the Airbus A320 family, and against the A320 family, the 737NG was quite competitive overall, except for the largest A321 variant.
Against the A321, the 737-900 had worse per-seat economics and lacked range, while the later 737-900ER had improved range but still burned more fuel per seat. This was a hole in Boeing’s product offering, but it wasn’t a huge concern as the 737-800 and A320 were the best-selling variants of their generation. With the re-engined A320neo family, however, the A321neo has become immensely popular due to its longer range and reduced fuel burn, while Boeing hasn’t had an answer thus far.
The 737 MAX 9 faces the same issues as the 737-900ER and has received even fewer orders so far. While the 737 MAX 8 is outselling the A320neo, the market has moved upwards, and the A321neo has now received over 7,700 orders, making it the best-selling commercial aircraft variant of all time. Boeing has also developed the 737 MAX 10, which looks compelling, but it was launched years after the rest of the 737 MAX family and is not in service, while Airbus continues to grab market share with the A321neo.
Bringing In The Boeing 757
Boeing ended production of the 757 in 2004, and the tooling was subsequently destroyed. Boeing offered the 737-900 as a replacement and launched the 737-900ER in 2005, but the 737-900/900ER are much smaller than the 757-200. A 737-900ER (which has a higher maximum capacity than the 737-900) typically seats between 170 and 215 passengers, whereas a 757-200 will seat between 190 and 239 passengers in a comparable layout.
The A321neo seats about the same number of passengers as the 757-200, although this is partially achieved through a more efficient interior layout. On the inside, the 757-200 has a slightly longer cabin length of 118 feet, 4 inches (36.1 meters), whereas the A321neo’s cabin length is 113 feet (34.44 meters). More crucially, however, the 757’s wings are much larger than those of the A321neo, and the aircraft is fundamentally heavier both empty and fully loaded.
Airbus A321neo | Boeing 757-200 | |
|---|---|---|
Length | 146 feet (44.51 meters) | 155 feet, 3 inches (47.3 meters) |
Cabin Length | 113 feet (34.44 meters) | 118 feet, 4 inches (36.1 meters) |
Wingspan | 117 feet, 5 inches (35.8 meters) | 124 feet, 10 inches (38 meters) |
Wing Area | 1,318 square feet (122.4 square meters) | 1,995 square feet (185.3 square meters) |
Maximum Takeoff Weight | 97 tons | 115.6 tons |
Engines | 2x CFM LEAP 1A or 2x Pratt & Whitney PW1100G | 2x Pratt & Whitney PW2000 or 2x Rolls-Royce RB211-535 |
In any case, a 757 burns much more fuel than an A321neo, but even a re-engined 757 would still be much heavier than the competition. Using comparable engines, it would be thirstier than the A321neo while carrying around the same number of passengers, killing the business case. Boeing could have redesigned the 757 to cut weight, but this would have been difficult and expensive, hurting margins while also creating a plane that’s fundamentally similar to the 737 MAX 10.
Why The 757 Is Designed The Way That It Is
By the 1970s, the Boeing 727 was the best-selling jet airliner in the world, but the three-pilot, three-engined workhorse was also aging. Boeing began developing the 757 as a successor to fill the same role, while also targeting aging 707s and DC-8s in terms of size. As such, the 757-200 carried significantly more passengers than the 727, but still needed to retain the 727’s short-field capabilities. The 757 accomplishes this through its famously powerful engines and massive wings.
The 757 had transatlantic range, but the aircraft was always intended mainly as a high-capacity short-haul workhorse, able to replace first-generation jetliners while serving alongside 727s. In the 1980s, when the 757 was first released, many 727s were relatively young, and lower oil prices led some airlines to keep their 727s longer than originally planned. The 757 was promoted as having similar operating costs as the 727 while carrying far more passengers, but airlines largely chose a different route.
Aircraft | Sales |
|---|---|
Boeing 727-100 | 571 aircraft |
Boeing 727-200 | 1,260 aircraft |
Boeing 737-800 | 4,991 aircraft |
Boeing 757-200 | 994 aircraft |
Airbus A320-200 | 4,756 aircraft |
McDonnell Douglas MD-80 | 1,191 aircraft |
The McDonnell Douglas MD-80, which debuted even before the 757, could carry about the same number of passengers as the 727 and offered lower operating costs. The Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-800, meanwhile, also carried a similar number of passengers, burned even less fuel, and had more range. The 757 had a niche in operating high-demand routes that stretched the range of smaller competitors and for short-field operations, but it was overbuilt for what the market truly wanted during its production run.
What About The Long Haul Market?
The 757 is most famous today for its use on transatlantic flights by airlines such as Icelandair and 
United Airlines. The Airbus A321LR and A321XLR are the sole options available today for these types of routes, and each has been reasonably successful. However, it’s undeniable that an improved 757 would likely have a higher payload capacity and could have a longer range than the Airbus offerings, but the problem is that the market for long-range narrowbodies is quite small.
Airbus has not disclosed exactly how many A321LRs have been ordered, and it’s believed that the manufacturer has received just over 550 orders for the A321XLR. The number is fine for the A321XLR because it’s a low-cost, high-margin derivative of the A321neo, but it would be extremely poor had the A321XLR been a standalone aircraft type. As previously mentioned, the 757 was always heavy compared to the competition on shorter routes, and the long-haul market is too small.
Narrowbodies on long-haul flights become fundamentally problematic because they earn little revenue in relation to the operating cost due to their size. This is the realm where an improved 757 would perform best against the A321neo/A321LR/A321XLR, but it would still face the same issues and would only receive a few hundred orders at most from this market space. Therefore, an improved 757 would need to win most of its orders from airlines aiming to operate shorter routes.
Why Canceling The 757 Was The Right Move
The 757 program sold fewer units than any other Boeing commercial jet except for the 707 and 717, largely because it was too large, too heavy, and too fuel-thirsty for the majority of the world’s short-haul routes. To replace 727s, airlines overwhelmingly chose the A320 or 737NG, while the A321 proved to be more economical on high-capacity routes than the 757. The 757 has excellent range and field performance, but these are niche qualities. In addition, while Boeing did sell the stretched 757-300, it only sold 55 of these, compared to over 900 757-200s.
As a whole, airlines want their narrowbody aircraft to be optimized for short routes, with the flexibility to operate longer flights as needed. The Airbus A321neo is the perfect example, while the A321LR and A321XLR have longer ranges for transatlantic routes. While the 757-200 was close in size to the A321, it lacked the economics to be competitive against the A321, and a re-engined version of the 757 would have faced the same problem. Keeping the 757 over the 737 would have been a mistake.
To properly counter the A321neo, Boeing stretched the 737 MAX again to create the 737 MAX 10. This aircraft lacks the range of the 757 or long-range A321neo variants, but it promises even lower per-seat costs than the A321neo, and this has been enough for airlines to order over 1,400 examples. While this pales in comparison to the A321neo, it’s received more orders than the 757, and despite being the newest variant of the 737 MAX family, it’s already the second-most popular model.
