You might think that, but Airbus developed the A350XWB — a direct competitor for the 787 — on a budget of €11Bn. Even taking into account exchange rate issues,

You might think that, but Airbus developed the A350XWB — a direct competitor for the 787 — on a budget of €11Bn. Even taking into account exchange rate issues, that's less than half the cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350_XWB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350_XWB (On the other hand, Airbus already had a lot of experience with composites in airliners, so the A350 was an evolutionary development, not a revolution: and they'd been working with international airliner component supply chains for decades already — it's what they do — so they didn't have to start from scratch.) My point is, the $30Bn sticker on the 787 is misleading because it covers not only a new wide-body airliner type but also a whole new supply chain management approach and a (for Boeing) revolutionary change in materials technology (from mostly-Al to mostly-carbon fiber composites).