Here is a contrary opinion from someone in the manufacturing business. I don’t know the answer. It was an Airbus plane that lost its vertical stabilizer over New York a month after 9/11, six years ago. The cause of that crash is still being debated but Airbus design was one aspect. There have been other examples of Airbus questions but Boeing has had its issues too. One example was the Japan Airlines 747 that suffered a catastrophic pressure bulkhead failure resulting in loss of the vertical stabilizer, just as in the Airbus crash. That airplane had previously been damaged in a hard landing and that may have contributed to the failure. The NTSB concluded that improper repairs by Boeing seven years before was the cause of that aircraft loss with 520 people.
We will eventually learn if this was a good deal for the Air Force. A previous Boeing scandal over a proposed lease of 767 tankers turned out to be a disaster with both Air Force and Boeing people going to jail and John McCain furious at both. Boeing was not going to get this contract.