3882
Vastly overrated, and force feedback can be integrated into a sidestick as well.
Airbus has significantly better systems, both safety and handling wise. The 737 is a 1960'era design that has been updated with a patchwork of updates, and is really rather basic. The 737 lacks a great deal of basic safety systems, and still suffers from a number of dangerous flaws. Boeing has only really caught up with the 787. From a pilots view, the age of the 737 really shows. The 737 is still very much a hands-on aircraft, and that is not necessarily a good thing when flying IFR at 30.000 ft and passing through turbulent conditions.
One example of the 737 being inferior to the A320 is when performing a go-around. In the A320 you press the "Take-off/Go-around" button, the aircraft applies max thrust and retracts gear, flaps on schedule and speedbrakes on it's own, and flies the entire missed approach procedure by itself unless the crew interferes. The 737 gives you take-off power and initial missed approach only. In severe cases, 737s have crashed because the speedbrakes weren't retracted. Why hasn't it been solved? Boeing avoided a massive lawsuit against it in the 80s and 90s, involving the lack of this function. Fitting the function today would be akin to admitting the fault, and facing new lawsuits. It would have been avoided had they done a clean sheet replacement of the 737, rather than the 737MAX.
The A320 is far more intuitive to fly. Any pilot can learn how to fly an A320 within a single day, it is that easy to fly. The downside being that the systems are a bit complex. Should a single minor system fail enroute, a reset may cause the system to not restart properly when the aircraft has landed and is being prepared for departure. In that case, you need to get a mechanic on the phone to solve the issue. It's minor maintenance issues, not any that affect flight safety.
