And following a series of poor management decisions, the company has continued to lose commercial aircraft market share to European multinational corporation Airbus.

Most visibly, Boeing has competed directly with SpaceX over the last decade in the commercial crew program to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

It now seems possible, if not probable, that Boeing has lost money on the commercial crew program, for which NASA has paid it $5.1 billion since 2010.

More than a decade ago, at the outset of the commercial crew program, NASA asked Congress for $500 million as part of its fiscal-year 2011 budget.

Recently, two senior NASA officials said the program would never have gotten off the ground had Boeing not entered the competition alongside SpaceX and other smaller companies.

"I don't think that we would be anywhere with commercial crew had it not been for Boeing coming into the fray," said Charlie Bolden, who served as NASA administrator from 2009 to 2017, during an Aviation Week webinar.

I think if Boeing had chosen to stay out of commercial crew, we probably would have never gotten funding for it.".

However, Bolden said, as soon as Boeing entered the competition, congressional attitudes started to change.

The contracting method meant that, instead of getting reimbursed for all of its expenses plus a fee, Boeing could lose money if there were technical delays or setbacks.

Speaking last week at the Ars Frontier conference in Washington, DC, Garver said Congress was "furious" when the Obama administration sought funding for commercial crew back in 2010.

"Boeing entering the commercial crew program meant that you got a lot more support from Congress because they tend to have a very robust lobbying program," Garver said.