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Comment by pylua | Hacker News Reader

One crash on U.S. soil and Boeing will never be the same again.

Realistically investor memory has a horizon measured in months. So long as there isn't an immediate threat to business continuity (and thus their stock listing) they will be fine. Odd as it sounds, one crashing plane isn't going to be enough to doom them, not even two or three.

Investors may have the memory of a goldfish but two or three crashes would surely rile up the media and end users enough to make a huge dent. Competitors and savvy investors might precipitate a sharp fall in stock price.

People value their own life a lot and it takes little to get a sizable portion of flyers to boycott the planes if there were crashes and loss of life. The airlines might decide it's better to sue boeing at that point.

Everything above is a speculation but I have a hard time imagining companies not being ruined after multiple airline crashes.

Unfortunately Boeing has been allowed to grow Too Big To Fail. They won't be allowed to die as they make up a significant portion of the Defense Industrial Base. Since stock buybacks are legal again, they can artificially maintain its price so long as they can raise the capital to do so. Worst case for them, the affected fleets get grounded and airlines stop buying those models. Plenty will still buy Boeing because the alternative is waiting forever for an Airbus, or being beholden to a single manufacturer. There are up and coming competitors like Embraer, but they cannot ramp up production fast enough to strangle Boeing. If Boeing dies it will be a zombie walk into oblivion. It is as you said, speculation.

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