| I wonder how much Boeing's strategy to reduce regulatory oversight as much as possible is going to cost Boeing shareholders going forward. Share price may have benefited for a few decades, but Boeing's image will be tarred with this for quite a few decades with far higher certification costs worldwide in numerous jurisdictions. There are many potential jurisdictions [1] looking out for their own interests, and may choose to defensively force a certification on Boeing instead of trusting the FAA. That will cost Boeing a lot of money. If the 737 line is continued at all, every single 737 variant that comes out after this will have a really steep hill of sales objections to climb, and they'll be handing out steeper discounts and lower profits to counter those objections. It may turn out that accepting an adversarial relationship with the FAA instead of lobbying to co-opt it was the optimal profit strategy in the long-term. If it pans out this way, then the optimal profit strategy is to encourage the most stringent regulatory regime in the corporation's home country that all others hold up as the gold standard and follow without question. This avoids the multiple costs individual certification efforts rack up because no one can trust each others' certification results because they all recognize they're too weakened by industrial lobbying efforts. A strong, quasi-centralized regulatory body then acts as the company's buffer to buy the benefit of the doubt, an insurance policy against a prolonged period when the company's culture is called into question. [1] http://www.dgca.nic.in/Global_Links.pdf |