Let's look at the A320. It was launched in 1984 when Airbus just finished developing the A310 and A300-600. (FWIW, the A300/310 was a complete financial failure.) Obviously, it was prior to the 1992 GATT agreement, so it was fully funded by European governments. According to the UK government, they "broke even" on the A320 investment in 1997 or 98 after some 1,100+ A320s were delivered. However, when I checked out the numbers, it appeared to me that "breaking even" meant recovering the investment at 0% interest. The A320 has been selling very well. Thus, there is no question that the UK government is now having a "real" return on their original A320 investment probably at a rate of around 5% or so. However, the market rate at that time was in the low teens. The difference between compounding $2 billion at 5% and, say, 13% interest rate for 14 years (when the UK government claimed "breaking even") is over $7 billion. The $7billion figure is not meant to be an accurate estimate. It just provides a rough idea. This is a tremendous saving on cost for Airbus. For Boeing, a rough estimation is to breakeven after 400 deliveries in no more than 10 years after service entry. When it took the UK government 14 years and 1,100+ deliveries to "break even," Airbus has the audacity to claim they will break even on the A380 only after 250 deliveries, I think people really have to question Airbus' credibility.
A common rebuttal here is how about all those US indirect subsidies. Let's look at them:
1. Government/defense contracts: prior to Boeing's acquisition of MDC, Boeing's non-commercial operations accounted for 10-30% of their revenue. Aerospatiale, BAe, DASA, and CASA consistently had larger combined revenue from government contracts than Boeing had. Even with the MDC acquistion, Boeing hasn't been significantly more dependent on government contracts than EADS and BAE Systems combined, especially if we look on a relative basis, namely, the ratio between commercial and non-commercial revenue.
2. Government-supported R&D: there is no question NASA has a large budget, but NASA does not support Boeing or commercial aircraft industry alone. There are plenty of European government agencies that support R&D directly applicable to Airbus. If Boeing is quilty on this one, so is Airbus.
3. US Exim bank: while the EU does not have an equivalent organized operation, European national banks have helped airlines in securing loans for purchasing Airbus planes at very "favorable" rates. Once again, it's not a Boeing-only privilege that Airbus doesn't have.
4. Tax breaks: I don't know enough to comment. I guess if WTO ruled against the US, then the US is guilty.
As Wino said, competition is good if it's fair, but I'm afraid Airbus has an unfair advantage.