47 minutes ago, Chock said:

the catalyst was greed. Because it has always been hard to make airliners and it has always required investment. And so it has always required confidence and brave management to consider creating a new airliner. But Boeing in the past had management with enough balls to be confident that their engineers and designers were up to the task of making something which could be competitive as well as safe.

Greed is a feature of almost every large corporation around the world today. in particular there are direct parallels between aircraft manufacture and banking. Both used to be run by people with a deep interest in their line of business. Bankers had high ethical standards, with a strict code of practice, and with the financial security of their customers being a top priority. Plane makers actually cared about what they built because they had a genuine interest in the future of aviation. Both needed to make a profit, but the commitment was to the original purpose of the business.

Then someone realised that putting more ruthless people in charge could boost profits. Now we have banking crashes and badly designed aircraft.

 

Edited April 11, 20206 yr by Biggles2010

Let's not forget that this greed led to many thousand of jobs going to China. They never believed  that quality and availability should enter into the equation.  Price only.