Posted on 03/02/2008 2:51:03 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
What could have been a done deal for the Boeing Co. five years ago came down to a two-horse race and finally a multibillion dollar loss for Everett on Friday in the sweepstakes to supply the Air Force with new jet refueling tankers.The Air Force's announcement that the $35 billion deal goes to Northrop-Grumman and Europe's Airbus parent, EADS, angered members of Washington's congressional delegation and raised the prospect of congressional hearings on the decision.
"We are outraged that this decision taps European Airbus and its foreign workers to provide a tanker to our American military," six members of the congressional delegation said in a joint statement. "This is a blow to the American aerospace industry, American workers and America's men and women in uniform."
"I was shocked by the announcement today that the Air Force intends to award the contract for the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers to the Airbus-Northrop Grumman team, and I believe there will be real skepticism among the defense-related committees in Congress," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash. Dicks is a powerful member of a Defense Appropriation Committee, and funding of the tankers will have to go through his panel.
"While we will await the debriefing of the Boeing team to learn how and why the decision was made, I remain convinced that the Boeing 767 tanker version would have been an extremely capable aircraft that would have created 40,000 U.S. jobs, including 9,000 in Washington state," Dicks said.
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Congressional members say they hope the decision wasn't influenced by a Boeing procurement scandal five years ago. And they expect Boeing to protest the decision.
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The GAO has 100 days to deny or uphold a protest.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldnet.com ...
Go Boeing! bump
Someone has been selling out American jobs for too long. We are on our way to being destroyed, so let us call a halt to this if we can find the culprit.
I’m all for keeping jobs in the US, but why should we subsidize Boeing if they had the inferior product?
Globalization at its best.
That said, the good news is the manufacturing jobs will remain here in America. The bad news is there will be a huge argument about the window treatments.
Harshest setback in list of Boeing’s woes
By Hal Weitzman in Chicago and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: March 2 2008 20:29 | Last updated: March 2 2008 20:29
For Boeing, the loss of the refuelling tanker contract is the harshest blow in a string of recent setbacks.
The 787 Dreamliner, Boeing’s biggest investment in commercial aircraft for more than a decade, has twice been delayed. First deliveries of the long-range 250-to-300-seat jets are expected to be at least nine months behind schedule.
Boeing’s 737 airborne early warning and control aircraft programme, originally designed for the Australian air force, is more than a year behind schedule.
Last week the Bush administration faulted Boeing for its work on a “virtual fence” on the US-Mexican border, saying the company had used inadequate software on the project and had failed to consult border agents before engineering the system. The programme has been pushed back another three years, which means Boeing could well lose the final contract.
Robert Gates, US defence secretary, said last month that the Pentagon might cut back the Boeing-led future combat systems programme because of budget pressures from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whether the flaws in some of Boeing’s current programmes played into the US air force’s decision last week will remain a matter of speculation until more is revealed about the Pentagon’s thinking.
The loss will certainly increase pressure on Boeing’s other military aircraft projects, several of which are coming to the end of their lives. If the company fails to win contracts, its traditional strength in military aircraft could start to ebb away.
Mark McGraw, vice-president of Boeing’s tanker programme, had said last month that if Boeing lost this latest contract, it would be out of the tanker business “for quite some time”.
The Chicago company’s revenues are evenly split between military and commercial operations. If profitable contracts on the military side become more infrequent, pressure will mount on Boeing’s commercial aircraft division.
One likely consequence of losing the refuelling tanker contract is that the assembly line in Everett, Washington state, for the 767 will be closed once the remaining commercial jets on order are completed, by about 2012. The 767 is the aircraft that would have been modified to provide the tankers had Boeing won.
The 600 production workers and other support staff will probably be moved to other programmes rather than fired. But the area around Everett has lost out on up to 2,000 new jobs. A further 4,000 jobs would have been created elsewhere in the US.
Boeing told the FT last month that splitting the contract “would be a tragedy for the US taxpayer”. Most defence analysts expect the company to appeal.
But Loren Thompson, a defence expert at the Lexington Institute, said that because the EADS/Northrop aircraft beat Boeing in four out of five categories deemed important by the air force, the chances of a reversal were slim.
Probably a coincidence that all the congressman calling this a bad decision are from states where the airplane would be built.
It could be the worst idea in the world and they’d be for it simply because of the impact on their re-election.
I’m inclined to go along with the professional decision makers rather than “outraged” politicians whose ox has been gored.
I don't think it was a matter of inferior product...perhaps price played a part and maybe, just maybe the state of Washington's far left wacko's like Patty Murray may have played a part......can you imagine...payback is hell
so what happened to those to pillars of the senate, Wasington senators Patsy Murphy and Maria Cantvotewell?
Bingo. You nailed it. Couldn’t have pointed this out better. The Governor too.
Seattle’s Congressional delegation is relentlessly anti-war and anti-military except.....when Boeing loses jobs.
Seattle’s delegation and Gov. Gregoire are also open border amnesty addicts.
Import cheap foreign labor to crush wages and take jobs away from American citizens? Hey, no problem, just potential new voters for the Demo Party.
Export Boeing jobs to Europe? Then they freak out!
Best product by what criteria? Supposedly this was a competition to replace the KC-135. The bases where the KC-135R's are based were designed for the KC-135A. They have long runways. Why did the USAF specify the need to to be able to take off with a full fuel load in 7,000'? The 767 fits in the same space as a KC-135R and can use the same hangers but carries more fuel and uses less runway than the KC-135R to take off. The KC-30 has a much bigger wing span that will require building new hangers and pouring concrete at exisiting air bases to make room for the planes on the ground.
Please tell me the difference between the Senators that the folks of Washington send to represent them in our Nations Capitol and the so called "Euroweenies"...both are commie bedwetters in IMHO.
Translation: "That was our pork - not Alabama's!" ;)
Exactly right!
I'm pretty sure they made some, and were slated to make even more $$$ off the lease "deal" that was going to sock the American taxpayer.
I also read that the Airbus 3 series aircraft use less fuel when they get to cruising altitude, but are a gas hogs getting there compared to similar US planes. This means that they’re best at long trips over 1000 miles, something we can’t count on.
http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/boechina.html
"Since the 1980s, Boeing has purchased more than US$1 billion in aviation hardware and services from China. Today, Boeing and Boeing supplier partners have active supplier contracts with China's aviation industry valued at well over $2.5 billion. Today, there are more than 4500 Boeing airplanes flying throughout the world with parts and assemblies built by China."
I think you've got that backwards. Traditionally Boeing wings are designed for optimal performance at cruising altitude and speed. Airbus wings are optimized for runway and climb performance.
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