Originally Posted by
megan
Read the "Sporty Game" by John Newhouse PD. Even those we might consider successful never recovered development costs. Among others he quotes the DC-9, DC-8 and L-1011 ($2.5 billion in the hole). So the Concorde is no different, except in the former it was shareholders who paid, and taxpayers in the latter.
@megan, I'm sure you're reporting Newhouse accurately, but I find this astonishing. Is it really the case that Douglas's two most successful jet airliners were loss makers? Is this by the real books, or is it Hollywood accounting? And if this was the real case, why on earth did they go on with airliners?