How Airbus Took Off

  There was also residual suspicion of European industry among US airliners. [...]
  Against this backdrop, Airbus did everything it could to deemphasize its European heritage as it toured the US.

The European tech industry on the other hand managed to curb that suspicion by becoming a complete non-threat.

Europe is quite conservative, in the sense that they would not invest billions into an unproven venture. It makes sense that it would excel at an industry that requires putting safety above everything.

The chart of Airbus vs Boeing hull sales would have benefited from a center line Airbus above boeing below style.

Stacked charts for two families work better that way than stack from baseline.

The article says they did a lot of customer research and even lobbying, leading to fuel efficiency focus and reduced size, and sticking the finger up to various offended European countries (not taking delegates to US, eschewing RR engines). This seems like savvy being sustained over decades. It must be cultural.