Originally Posted by The Situation

This is alarmingly naïve. The aviation manufacturing industry will never ever be a "level playing field." Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, Comac all receive generous benefits from their governments - the optics of these generous benefits vary, but nonetheless, all of these entities are subsidized by their governments. Given the barriers to entry into the industry and the capital required relative to the risks of developing a new product line, it would be impossible for any of these entities to survive without government subsidies. That being said, for companies that are all heavily subsidized by their governments, given how many aircraft all of these manufacturers sell, the competition and the pricing does not seem to be uneven or unfair as a result of subsidies, but as a result of differences in the manufacturing process and cost of labor.


I don't think there is a single person on here that would want Boeing to fail, especially considering that I would assume most of the people on the Delta forum live in the U.S. and given the number of jobs and GDP that Boeing generates, a failure of Boeing would likely drive the U.S. into recession overnight. I think criticism of Boeing is more due to the fact that once-upon-a-time, they produced the best aircraft, then Airbus moved slightly ahead from the passenger's perspective. Boeing didn't respond with products that keep up with Airbus's products. Management for both companies made some poor decisions, but Airbus's bad decisions were in capital investment and Boeing's bad decisions were partially in capital investment, but mostly in operations. You can move forward a lot easier from a bad investment in an A380 (painful as it may be) than you can from decisions lead to your competitor having a more efficient manufacturing process and lower labor costs. Now Airbus has a competitive advantage and Boeing simply needs a kick in the butt to get it moving in the right direction again, for passengers' and the nation's sake. Short term pain for Boeing will be better in the long term for everyone.