Originally Posted by
SOPS
I still fail to understand why they killed off the 757
The 737 NG - especially the 737-900ER - killed the 757. The 757 was always relatively expensive to build - during development of a new aircraft there is always an ongoing struggle between light weight and inexpensive to produce - on the 757 light weight nearly always won out. OTOH, the 737 was relatively cheap to build - and with the -900ER it could carry nearly as many people as the 757, with similar seat mile costs, and it was
way cheaper to buy.
Boeing tried to breath new life into the 757 with the -300 model, but that was a huge flop (good seat mile costs, but still expensive to build and the turn times for a 250 passenger single aisle are horrible). By the time Boeing pulled the plug on the 757, production was down to one/month which drove the overhead costs per aircraft through the roof. There simply was no longer money to be made building 757s.