While massive failures made, it’s hard to picture the board meeting where they conclude “we should sit on all this cash just in case our most profitable product is grounded for 20 mos at the same time demand takes a 15 std dev downward move”. That’s one hell of a crystal ball
One item worth noting. The dearth of long-term thinking had Boeing buying back shares at $400 each and now will need to sell them around $230 to raise cash.