Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Ah, right - a bit like my local supermarket selling baked beans at a loss, in order to get customers through the door.
From the article you linked to:
What few realize is that the decades long battle between airbus and boeing is centered aound how ' launch aid' is determined, and the financial games played.
The Cliffs notes version re Airbus is and has been since 1992 ( GATT ) that governments could provide launch aid at 'discount' interest rates and based on selling/delivering xxyy airplanes by zz years.
And if the 'targets' were not met via 'payback of loan ' in zz years, then the remainder of the ' loan' would be forgiven. Additionaly, the loan was to be for ' startup- research - development costs '
Over the years GATT became WTO , etc. And a lot of definitons of terms were/are vague eg how the beans are counted and what baskt they must be in.
Thus the legal bean counters have had a near lifetime job of defending their side, and a simple explanation of ' success"' is unlikely to ever be forthcoming.