GearDown&Locked said:
Why doesn't the US gov help boeing openly? why does it have to be trough MIL programms, or NASA, and not directly? Will they stand and watch boeing go down in flames as the competition is climbing all over their backs?
At least airbus has a more transparent way of doing things, every European knows what is being done, and in the end they can vote against if they think the EEC is wasting taxpayers money.
I think we should consider the whole story of subsidies in a simple way. Let us try to understand who really have indirect subsidies. We can try to list all kind of goverment supported agencies that can be considered as indirect help to civil aviation industry. I can only give examples in France, the same agencies can be found almost in any other country in EU.
US:
NASA
Military/DARPA
Government research institutes in Fluid dynamics
Local financial support: Washington state incentive
EU:
National research agencies.
Example
ONERA
Military
Example
CEAT
Projects supported financially by the European Commission
Example
GARTEUR AWIATOR
Local government aid
Example
Aeroconstellation in Toulouse Transport infrastructure
This list shows only an extremely small of what you can define as indirect aid.
As a conclusion you can say that both sides have obviously indirect support from the goverments. The frontiers of indirect aid are not very clear, so let us forget this.
Boeing's claim is focused on what is called Launch Aid and the conditions of its refunding. The EU has the right to finance up to 33% of the total cost of a new civil aircraft programme launch. In 1992, when the agreement was reached, Boeing is preparing its merger with MDD. The resulting corporation would become the only airplane manufacturer in the world that could produce 100+ civil aircraft. The EU threatened not to give the clearance for this merger unless if an agreement to help Airbus to become a credible contender could be reached. I think it was about something called antitrust action.
Airbus delivered last year and will deliver this year more aircraft than Boeing. Airbus' backlog is larger than Boeing's. We are proud of it. Now, the question is if Airbus can live without any further Launch Aid. Let us not forget that Airbus has now a full spectrum of products. Although I personnally support Airbus One Hundred Percent, I cannot say that Boeing's claim is fully wrong.