Company
PR is all very well. And if Boeing's
PR team are placing Airbus-spoiling copy (like this one) wherever they can worldwide, extolling what they have got over the opposition's products, that is indeed their job. Yes, we here can spot the inconsistencies, but we are the knowledgeable 1% reading aviation articles in newspapers rather than the 99% general readership it is aimed at.
The trouble is I get the feeling that Boeing themselves are actually starting to believe it, and rather than cater to the long distance mass market they really think it really has dissipated from what led to all their 707/747 sales in past decades. Part of this myopia is that it has indeed fragmented for US carriers, and whereas passengers used to congregate at say JFK for transatlantic flights they now have options through Atlanta, Washington, Chicago, etc on intermediate-sized aircraft like 767s and 777s. But this is principally a US-only feature. The rest of the world has retained trunk routes and seems set to continue, or where new carriers such as Emirates through Dubai have come on to the scene they are able to generate A380 loads themselves.
As US carriers don't seem able to afford an intercontinental aircraft betwen them at present, it's a poor alternative to take.