Boeing VS. Airbus

The Generation Gap Narrows

1917 Boeing founded

1958 Boeing 707 ushers in the jet age

Photos: National Air And Space Museum/Jon Simon/Reuters

1970 Airbus Founded

1974 The A300, Airbus's first jet, makes its first commercial flight

1995 Boeing 777 introduced

1997 Boeing merges with McDonnell Douglas Corp., making it one of the top U.S. aerospace defense contractors

2000 February 17 000 Boeing engineers in Washington State, Oregon, California, and Florida stage 40-day strike

2000 November EADS, Europe's largest aerospace company and Airbus's majority owner, created from merger of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, France's Aerospatiale Matra, and Spain's CASA

2001 March Boeing moves headquarters from Seattle to Chicago

2001 March Boeing unveils superfast Sonic Cruiser, which it says will shave more than an hour off a trans-Atlantic flight

July Airbus formally established as an integrated company, with 80 percent held by EADS and 20 percent by Britain's BAE Systems

October Boeing loses the largest military contract ever, for the US $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter program, to Lockheed Martin

2002 Boeing's Sonic Cruiser is scrapped

2003 Airbus delivers more planes than Boeing for the first time

August Boeing tanker scandal uncovered

Photos: National Air And Space Museum/Jon Simon/Reuters

Boeing's CFO Michael Sears

November Boeing's CFO Michael Sears [on the right in photo], was fired because of role in tanker scandal

December Scandals force out Boeing's CEO Philip M. Condit [photo, left]; ex-McDonnell Douglas head, Harry Stonecipher, named new CEO; production of 7E7, an ultra-efficient midsize plane, approved by Boeing board

2004 April Boeing receives first order for 7E7

May Airbus launches production of A380