Title: How the McDonnell Douglas-Boeing merger led to the 737 Max crisis — Quartz
Headings: The 1997 merger that paved the way for the Boeing 737 Max crisis
The 1997 merger that paved the way for the Boeing 737 Max crisis
A turbulent path to an uneasy union
McDonnell Douglas was in an out-and-out nosedive.
The honeymoon period?
“If you don’t perform, you don’t stay on the team.”
How a change in approach led to the 737 Max
“None of the above should have passed the ‘OK’ pencil.”
Light through the clouds?

Content: Regulators noted McDonnell Douglas “no longer [constituted] a meaningful competitive force in the commercial aircraft market,” and that, without a full line of large and small jets, it had no real plan to stave off the “grim prospect” of collapse. Without a takeover, there is every indication that the company might have failed all by itself. The honeymoon period? Eventually, after months of deliberation, regulators approved the match in August of 1997, with four out of five Federal Trade Commission members ruling that it would not “substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in either defense or commercial aircraft markets.” Boeing bought the McDonnell Douglas for $14 billion. Shares of both enjoyed a slight bump. Boeing’s new acquisition allowed Condit to move forward on his other key project: diversifying Boeing’s revenue streams. With the lucrative government contracts it picked up with McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell, Boeing’s comparatively fledgling space and defense operations could flourish. In the eyes of many Boeing employees, McDonnell Douglas executives seemed to do disproportionately well out of the merger: