Bob they did have some part shortage issues but I have seen that happen during other start up projects. I don't want to start a hate china thread here but I know for a fact a lot of shortage issues were caused from them not knowing how to count|read English (this was told to me directly by the chief buyer). China makes mostly fastener's and small parts mostly not airframe parts although ones that can be critical
. We make the wing spars from 22" long up to 126" long my opinion is that they are very important structure's of the wing's. Point is on some of them we are up to REV. ZC (yes that is the second time around the alphabet) kind of scary really. It will be interesting to me to see the end result, you could be right and this will be the demise of Boeing but I think they have more money than brains
and we will take it from them as long as we can. They had many many more problems with this project than either of us know about or I can say anything about.
Just for the record I don't fly on any plane any longer I send the help to make them feel important.