To be honest, I don’t really see how the current problems with the 787 really hurt the overall image of the company. Though clearly the image of the 787 program will be affected.
Bare in mind that Boeing sells to airlines and governments. When they decide on a new fleet of aircraft, they do so on cold hard numbers. Usually the decision is also made by commitee, so one’s individual emotions do not really influence the decision unlike when you or me buy for instance a car. So as long as safety, purchase price, operating costs and despatch reliability are fine Boeing will continue to sell. That most of Boeing’s current catalogue are models that have been around a while does not matter much. They have been updated to keep them in line with current needs.
So yes, some of the Boeings are not at the bleeding edge. But sometimes an airline does not even want that. For instance, to maintain commonality with their ‘300 and ‘500 series Southwest asked for a 737NG cockpit as close to the classics as possible. They got what they wanted. Because Southwest was (and still is) one of the first and largest customers for the 737, the rest of the customers got the same package. Only later were more advanced features such as head-up displays added, and even then only as a option!
That’s why for instance any Fokker F100 can land in near zero visibility while most (no?) 737NGs can not do that (maybe the latest NG’s can, don’t know for sure). Does that make the F100 a better plane… well, from an engineering point of view it probably is. Meanwhile Fokker has been bankrupt for 10 years while Boeing is fast approaching the 8000th B737. So again, it’s all about the money.
That’s not to say that the current mess with the 787 won’t leave scars. The immediate scars are quite obvious: penalty payments for delayed planes, maybe some cancelled orders, maybe a few airlines that go to Airbus and the stock price that ain’t that good either.
Longer terms it might become harder to get airlines on board as launch customers. There will always be launch customers, cause the sweeteners that are thrown in are usually very good. But the sweeteners will probably have to be even sweeter then they are now, moving the break-even point even further back. This might also affect the willingness of banks to provide financing.
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