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Eh if Boeing dies Lockheed Martin can get back into the commercial aviation business fairly quickly. They made the best passenger plane of its time[1] after all...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_L-1011_TriStar

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That's a plane designed in the 1960s and last produced in 1984. There's a massive gap in development which Lockheed would need to run through. Why would Lockheed even do this? (assuming there isn't a massive subsidy from US government).

Building a passenger jet isn't even that difficult. The difficult part is making it economical - low weight, fuel consumption, high reliability, parts availability, service/repair centers, training facilities, trained crews ...

LMT is the third largest manufacturer of aircraft in the world, after Boeing and Airbus. They've built commercial aircraft before and are the best positioned to re-enter that market if there is a (government-encouraged) opening from massive failures at Boeing. I don't think they'll walk into it unprovoked, but my point is that Boeing isn't the only game in town long-term in the US.

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