Aerospace consultant Richard Aboulafia, with the Teal Group, told Bloomberg that the pending deal "is a good endorsement" that the Boeing 737 redesign effort is "poised to achieve some kind of cost advantage."

 That pressures Boeing to cut the wait for its new 737s, which can stretch to years for some airlines, says Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia.

The real problem is long-term," Aboulafia says, noting the record-high output for single-aisle airplanes over several years, with no slowdown until both the A320neo and MAX are in production. "Then you'll have Airbus try to exploit a first-mover advantage and Boeing working hard to ramp up faster and catch up. This all sounds like a recipe for overcapacity by the end of the decade."

Now, Airbus is preparing to introduce upgraded avionics and other systems that would bring its plane’s features closer to those offered in Boeing’s upgraded 737 Max, which is slated to begin commercial flights in 2017, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia-based consultant. “This is something they’ve always done,” Aboulafia said in a phone interview. “Boeing tends to launch all of its big changes in one block. Airbus has more of a rolling update approach.”