"Too big to fail" works if they're making the right people rich but were otherwise being seen to do their job, then suddenly external factors seem to threaten their existence and money can get them back to making the right people rich. The pandemic was a good example of that. However, when they're publicly failing to do their job due to a broken or corrupt internal culture then instead of bailouts they might get broken up or more drastically changed because money can't solve the problem at that point.
The analogy to the banking crisis doesn't quite work. For years the banks didn't have any major snafus, banking in general was working great for most people and making many (and crucially, all the right people) rich. Also, the previous problems had been papered over pretty effectively and 2008 was a particularly bad crash. Boeing on the other hand has had a string of major crises for a few years in a row. It'd be comparable to the banks if savings and loan, the dot com crash, and 2008 all occurred within 5 years. By that third one very few politicians would have the political capital left to spend on bailouts.
More competition is similar to “defunding” all the competing companies.
Competition is not enough. It must be easy for new competitors to enter the market to ensure a nefarious trust doesn't form between companies.
Price fixing, wage suppression, monopolizing etc are all detrimental to the customer, employees, or other businesses, but it is possible to collaborate or “cease competition” in certain areas for mutual benefit in ways that are not detrimental (and in fact, are also beneficial) to others.
If this were true I'd expect to see industries where innovation usually comes from new companies in the market. The existing companies have stopped trying, stopped competing, and thus you only see innovation from new companies. Do we see this pattern often?
My point is the number of competitors is less important than how easy it is for new competitors to enter.
There was a huge disconnect between the leadership of the respective armies and the rank-and-file soldiers dying in the trenches. So it wasn't just "its Christmas, we shouldn't be killing each other", it was also "we have no idea why we are fighting in the first place, and our leaders think it more important that we die than that we win." It was deliberate insubordination to what the soldiers understood was pointless wasting of their lives.
I think the correct analogy is if the workers of Airbus and Boeing both struck because the two companies had both adopted new business practices in the name of business competition, that simply killed workers and passengers without providing either with any kind of competitive advantage.
In the absence of effective external oversight and regulation - clearly a problem across the economy, never mind here - you can guarantee a race to the bottom where only the beans matter.
If the company stops making quality products that usually creates a bonus, because cheap. Lower headcount? Bonus. Union busting? Bonus. Low wages? Bonus. Indifference to worker welfare? Bonus. Cosy revolving door relationship between lawmakers, regulators, and senior management? Mega payout!
The incentives are all aligned towards making payouts for owners bigger, while lowering objective quality of service, worker conditions, and worker pay.
Airbus is less terrible because the EU regulatory regime isn't quite as toothless, and the EU has a very slightly less competitive and exploitative financial culture.
You find the same human-hostile forces right across the economy - from landlords who send rents into an exploding price spiral, to utilities that monopolise infrastructure while investing as little as possible, to pork barrel government spending at inflated prices, to startups whose only real USP is an app and a plan to sidestep existing regulations, to tiny restaurants that expect customers to tip generously, because they're certainly not going to pay waitstaff a living wage.
There must be real competition for this to work. In reality their are 2 large plane builders, Airbus and Boeing. And I believe Airbus also as issues too.
Plus, you know that old saying, "In the long run, we are all dead" :)
I mean, sort of... but with something as complex as aviation, the feedback cycle into the market is slow and noisy.