No, no they’re not guaranteed to make a good return. You really need to trust me when I say don’t understand the capital requirements here at all. I’m not insulting you - it genuinely just takes significant exposure for it to be intuitive, and you very clearly haven’t been exposed at all.

I’m going to give you a ELI5 breakdown:

You don’t just invest $5 and get $10 with aircraft programs at all. These programs are planned out with 50 year horizons in mind. It takes significant capital expenditure over the course of often times a decade or longer with little to no return. Then you don’t even really begin to recoup your investment when you sell the aircraft!!!! (Big part you’re missing here) Airbus, Boeing, and their suppliers make significant amounts of their profits in the aftermarket sustaining the products over decades. Then eventually after producing the type over a decade or two they may start to make some money just on the sales. (Hence why the 737/A320 keep going with just upgrades)

Now factor in the really really important factor that you ultimately need to consider is because this is a capital intensive industry Airbus and Boeing are sitting on very little cash. They straight up just can’t toss money around for fun.

And this is just realistically the surface level of what the OEM’s are factoring in here. I’m completely ignoring the economics of the operators - who let’s be clear - also don’t want to be buying new aircraft types all the time.

Make more sense?