A few points: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher Liao" <flpuck6@yahoo.com> To: <AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU> Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 07:57 Subject: those repayable loans > A few thoughts on the announcement regarding France's > extension of a REPAYABLE loan for the A380: > > - If you were the only other 100+ seat commercial > airplane maker in the world But Airbus isn't the only other one. Everyone seems to forget the Russian manufacturers.... > The 747 is the only product available to the airlines. Well, there are the 777s, but I get your point. > - Remember these are REPAYABLE loans. Airbus WILL > still be required to pay back the loans. They're still > paying back loans given to them years ago, so it's not > like the government is just giving them money. > (On a side note, do you think the European airlines > are happy that our US-carriers received all that > money, never to be repaid back to the gov't?) Are you suggesting the US carriers were overcompensated for having their operations completely shut down for several days by government order? If so, by how much? > - What's it to us if they do this under the table or > not? Boeing does receive indirect help from the > government via the military. Give Boeing a military > contract to develop some planes and who's to say where > the money from that program goes to? So if that's beyond the bounds, what's Airbus going to do when it starts producing viable military transports, etc.? Grin and bear it when the Russians, Chinese, or Brazilians start subsidizing their own aircraft manufacturers' bids for market share? Or is this just another example of the "French exception"? Steven