Message to Management: Get an edge
Bombardier invented regional jets. They were a success because the hub-and-spoke system enabled airlines to feed to and from smaller airports around major hubs. But they also enabled airlines to pay pilots flying those connections lower salary because scope clause provisions specified specific size aircraft that those regional aircraft circumvented. For awhile it worked. Then low cost carriers started milking profits by cherry picking some of the best routes, and labor unions realized they needed stronger specifications in their agreements. Bombardier also benefited from generous loan guarantees to customers of its RJs - at interest rated normally available only to government entities. C Series would sell better if oil prices were higher. It should still sell reasonably well over time as more of the hundreds of conditional orders in its backlog gradually get firmed up. Any company breaking into a new market benefits from specific advantages in selling its products. Boeing and Airbus dominate because they have the benefit of huge indirect subsidies in the form of defense spending programs to augment their businesses and their research and development. If smaller companies need a little help from government in an effort to attract and build participation in aerospace, so be it. Companies like Boeing, Airbus, the Chinese certainly don't balk at directly or indirectly subsidizing their efforts to dominate. But then howl like He11 if anyone else wants aerospace jobs.