The Customer Is Not Always Right

What Consumer Diana Discovered While Shopping for an Airplane She Cannot Afford

Although I’m not in the market for a Bombardier anytime soon, this had me thinking and shopping online for a private jet. I will not be purchasing one. Still, I wanted to know what all the commotion was about.

President Donald Trump recently declared that Bombardier should no longer be permitted to sell its aircraft in the United States unless it begins manufacturing them here.

He also said, “Their products aren’t good enough!” That stopped Consumer Diana on the runway. If the aircraft are not good enough, how would building them in the United States make them better?

Manufacturing location and product quality are two different issues. Moving final assembly across a border does not automatically alter the engineering, materials, safety standards, or performance of an aircraft.

It also made me wonder whether the president knew how much of a Bombardier aircraft is already connected to American workers and businesses.

The White House did not explain how the proposed prohibition would be implemented. Bombardier’s aircraft have FAA approval and comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. (Reuters)

So I did what I increasingly believe should occur between reaction and response:

I researched.

Bombardier manufactures business aircraft designed for long-distance travel, speed, and comfort. Its Global 8000 is advertised with an 8,000-nautical-mile range, four separate cabin suites, and an unusually low cabin altitude intended to reduce the physical strain of long flights. The FAA certified the aircraft in December 2025. (Bombardier, Reuters)

Apparently, other consumers have also found Bombardier aircraft appealing. About half of the company’s worldwide fleet of approximately 5,100 aircraft is located in the United States.

Then I began reading the company’s history.

Joseph-Armand Bombardier was an inventor and entrepreneur from rural Quebec who began experimenting with vehicles capable of traveling across heavy snow. The company that bears his name was incorporated in 1942.

What began with one French Canadian inventor trying to solve a practical transportation problem eventually developed into one of Canada’s most recognizable industrial enterprises. (Bombardier history, Associated Press)

That history matters.

A company is more than its sales figures. It carries the ingenuity of its founder, the accumulated knowledge of generations of workers, the identity of its community, and the industrial heritage of the country in which it was built.

But this is also where the story becomes more complicated—and more revealing.

Bombardier is Canadian, but its production system is already deeply integrated with the United States.

The company employs approximately 3,500 people in this country, works with about 2,800 American suppliers across 47 states, and spends more than $2.5 billion annually with U.S. suppliers.

Its aircraft contain American-made engines, avionics, and other major systems. Wings for the Global 8000 are manufactured by American workers in Red Oak, Texas. Crucial flight-control components are produced near Los Angeles. More than 1,000 people work at Bombardier’s operation in Wichita, Kansas, and the company is preparing to open another facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana. (Bombardier statement, Associated Press)

Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas said he contacted the Trump administration specifically to ensure the president understood Bombardier’s importance to Kansas workers and the American aerospace supply chain.

That does not tell us what the president knew before making his statement. It tells us that a senator from his own party believed the administration needed to be reminded.

This is not a simple story about Canadian jobs competing with American jobs.

It is a story about an interconnected North American economy—and what happens when political power enters the supply chain carrying a hammer.

Several dragons boarded this flight at once.

There is the quality dragon, making a serious assertion without publicly presenting the engineering or safety evidence supporting it.

There is the nationalism dragon, telling us that economic cooperation must mean one country is winning while the other is losing.

There is the control dragon, asking whether access to a large consumer market gives one country the right to dictate where another country’s company must assemble its products.

There is the labor dragon, because Canadian production jobs, American supplier jobs, and thousands of families on both sides of the border are connected to the same aircraft.

There is the heritage dragon, asking whether the history and identity of a Canadian company have value beyond the revenue it earns from American customers.

And there is the safety dragon.

Aircraft certification exists to determine whether an aircraft is airworthy—not to settle an economic disagreement. Earlier reporting on a similar threat found that the FAA did not appear to have authority under existing regulations to revoke aircraft certifications for economic rather than safety reasons. (Reuters)

My years in banking taught me something that businesses sometimes forget:

The customer is not always right.

Customers matter. They deserve honesty, competence, fair treatment, and good service. Their concerns should be heard.

But a valuable customer does not automatically become the owner of the business.

A large borrower did not get to rewrite our lending standards merely because the bank wanted the relationship. A customer’s purchasing power did not entitle that customer to control every decision made by the institution serving them.

That distinction matters here.

The United States is an enormously important market for Bombardier. That gives American buyers influence.

But does being the largest customer entitle one country to tell another country that its historic company must move production—and Canadian jobs—across the border?

Does an aircraft become better simply because its final assembly occurs in the United States?

And if Bombardier already purchases billions of dollars in American products and supports thousands of American jobs, what exactly would be gained—and who might be harmed—by disrupting that system?

Those are questions worthy of more than a social media declaration.

Perhaps that is the larger lesson Consumer Diana discovered while shopping for the airplane she will never buy. Markets depend on customers.

But healthy markets also depend on rules, reciprocal agreements, reliable suppliers, skilled workers, institutional trust, and respect for the people who build what customers want to purchase.

Bombardier began with a Quebec inventor trying to help people travel through the snow. More than eight decades later, his company helps people cross continents while supporting workers and suppliers on both sides of the border.

That is not merely a Canadian success story. It is a North American story. Different flags. Shared supply chains.

Free markets. Good neighbors.

And plenty of dragons flying overhead.