>>1169255What single mistake, for them, was the thing that killed them for good? (Other than not building the MD-11 as an ETOPS twin)
For me, it's not offering a high bypass fan on the MD-80 earlier than the mid 90s. If the MD-93 came out a decade earlier and snagged stuff like Southwest and the other early low-costs in the 1980s, there's a significant chance that MD and Boeing's fortunes could have flipped in the 90s, with MD having the cash to build both twinjet and trijet variants of the -11 side by side a la the A330/340 while Boeing's lack of significant 737 income slowed the 777's development to late 90s early 00s release when it could have been too little, too late against the thousands of MD-11s and A330/340s sold.
