[the_duke]

OT, but:

> but didn't seem to have any problem with Airbus taking over the CSeries program for almost nothing.

This is actually a somewhat amusing to bring up in this context, because US protectionism is what made that happen.

Boeing tried to kill off the C-Series by getting the US administration to impose 300% (sic!) import duties because ... it threatened US jobs. Airbus was targeting the program aggressively as well with tactics like price matching, so the CSeries was already struggling before that.

Bombardies only viable way out was to join a partnership with Airbus (which got 50.1%), so the planes could be manufactured in their Alabama plant and it could be positioned within the Airbus product range instead of competing.

The partnership was forced move, and quite a big middle finger to Boeing. The alternative would have probably been just shutting it down.

[908B64B197]

Bombardier already had a huge backlog of orders and the program was getting profitable. Since the tariffs were later ruled illegal, why not simply get the government support to weather the storm?

Could you imagine the French letting Dassault, Airbus or the US government letting Boeing fail?