> Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined?
The documentary "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"[1] goes into this topic, and I believe the wiki page[2] summary captures it nicely:
> "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. [...]"
Of course, I have no idea if this is just cherry-picking information, but it does seem plausible why things "suddenly" changed.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...