Boeing will never fail financially or fall out of use because of their importance for US geopolitical status. I don’t think the USA cares much about the issue except insofar as the USA wants Boeing to deliver reliable high quality products.
However, Boeing executives can (and should) get in to trouble. They probably care very much about what comes to light in court.
> Boeing will never fail financially or fall out of use because of their importance for US geopolitical status
If the trial concludes with “Yes boing knew the planes were not safe but let people fly in them” it doesn’t matter how important it is to the US, no passenger will want to fly them.
1. Ivestigation/prosecution/Trial of which country? (people can be influenced)
2. As last resort: Us Gov can take over and actually reform Boeing (fixing public perception)
And there is whole continuum between 1 and 2.
(I really doubt that anything shady happened with this pneumonia; but IF something shady was done, US will make effort to preserve/save national aviation giant)
People may not want to fly Boeing but they still want to fly.
Even if all US airlines wanted to switch, it would take Airbus a few decades to deliver replacements, by which time the issue will be forgotten (unless they keep crashing and falling apart midair).
US airlines will probably not be allowed use chineese planes as replacements.
I’m not trying to minimise Boeing’s responsibility, just saying that assuming the company starts to turn things around, nothing that comes out of the trial will affect the future of Boeing the company much, but it might well be catastrophic for the top brass.
However, Boeing executives can (and should) get in to trouble. They probably care very much about what comes to light in court.