INVEST AVIATION STOCKS ARE A BARGAIN.ARE THEY WORTH THE TURBULENCE?

IN RECENT MONTHS, Boeing's share price has fallen almost as fast as its aircraft parts have tumbled from the sky.

- JEFF JOHN ROBERTS

There have been a series of harrowing incidents this year involving defects on Boeing planes. Some cases were routine hiccups, but others involved alarming oversights-most infamously, the loose bolts that led a door-plug panel from an Alaska Airlines 737-9 Max to land in the yard of an Oregon schoolteacher on Jan. 5. This latest round in Boeing's struggle with manufacturing debacles and quality-control problems led CEO David Calhoun to announce his resignation. The Federal Aviation Administration, meanwhile, has cracked down on the manufacturer, limiting Boeing's ability to deliver new aircraft.

This has meant headaches for investors: Boeing shares were down more than 30% year to date in mid-May, and other aviation and airline stocks have also tumbled. But in an industry as essential to the economy as aerospace, any bad patch can turn into an opportunity-which raises the question of whether Boeing or the airlines that fly its planes might now be bargains.

Despite the cascade of disasters and the deep-rooted cultural problems underlying them, there's a case to be made for Boeing as a long-term play-because the company enjoys the benefits of a duopoly. Boeing produced around 40% of the 29,000 commercial aircraft flying today, as Fortune recently reported, and along with Europe's Airbus it has a lock on that market for the foreseeable future.