> The government is not a good allocator of funds, free market competition works a lot better for creating the best product.
That doesn't explain why their civilian aircraft aren't just not the best product, but have gone completely to shit over the last decade or two. The 737 max is the most notorious example here, as it's their most recent development and has never been good from the start - but reporting suggests that the engineering on their formerly-good lines has been going downhill also, and it's only the fact that they started out as good products which means they've taken longer to fall as low.
And there's very little government revenue for the civilian aircraft design and manufacturing side of the business. It's all free market competition.
> gone completely to shit over the last decade or two
Has the 777 and 787 done this? I don't think so. Yes, Airbus has many competitive aeroplanes in adjacent categories now, but that does mean the originals (and their many sub-models) from Boeing have "gone completely to shit".
That doesn't explain why their civilian aircraft aren't just not the best product, but have gone completely to shit over the last decade or two. The 737 max is the most notorious example here, as it's their most recent development and has never been good from the start - but reporting suggests that the engineering on their formerly-good lines has been going downhill also, and it's only the fact that they started out as good products which means they've taken longer to fall as low.
And there's very little government revenue for the civilian aircraft design and manufacturing side of the business. It's all free market competition.