Boeing Bribes Better

[Spock]

Boeing has won the Air Force tanker contract after two failed attempts.

Alabama will be disappointed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/busine...anker.html

[Grace62]

I'm thrilled! Great for our local economy here. Many thousands of good jobs, for many years.

Sorry for the EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company) folks in the gulf states, can't win 'em all!

http://www.pentagonchannel.mil/

[Carnos Jax]

The gulf region could probably use it more. The pity is that the Airbus product seems to have been the better one here. And from the few (and I stress that) tanker pilots I've talked to, they all seemed to prefer the Airbus plane over the Boeing one. I'd be curious what more of them would say.

I suspect it is a pity win for Boeing, being that it lost out on the JSF contest (there were a lot of Pentagon heads at the time saying they'd 'make it up' to Boeing by giving them the tanker contract).

[RgrF]

Probably my bias but I'd rather see the fed money go to a region that just might spend a bit of it on education more than I'd expect any Gulf region to do.

[Spock]

Carnos Jax wrote:
The gulf region could probably use it more. The pity is that the Airbus product seems to have been the better one here. And from the few (and I stress that) tanker pilots I've talked to, they all seemed to prefer the Airbus plane over the Boeing one. I'd be curious what more of them would say.

I suspect it is a pity win for Boeing, being that it lost out on the JSF contest (there were a lot of Pentagon heads at the time saying they'd 'make it up' to Boeing by giving them the tanker contract).

Sounds like politics as usual. Shame that jobs seem more important than giving the armed services the best tools for the job.

[Carnos Jax]

Don't know how the numbers would've actually shaken out, but I read that both proposals would've resulted in the same number of jobs.

[Mac1337]

Where?

[Grace62]

Carnos Jax wrote:
Don't know how the numbers would've actually shaken out, but I read that both proposals would've resulted in the same number of jobs.

If you mean jobs in the US, not at all, not even close. Boeing's win is 50,000 American jobs, over a period of years.

Airbus was going to build the A330 in France, as they do now. They were constructing something in Mobile to do "finishing" and were going to fly the tankers there after they were constructed elsewhere. Last I heard - 500 jobs. Alabamans were happy to get that, though originally they were told thousands of jobs. It would have helped them develop some aerospace industry, which they already have a bit of. They will also benefit from the Boeing win due the many Boeing employees who work in Huntsville.
After reading more, I see that this is the far better win for US workers, much more so than an EADS win woud have been.

[Carnos Jax]

Grace, here's just one article of many that references a 48000 figure for U.S. jobs created (about the 10th paragraph down) if EADS had one...not sure where you're getting the 500 number from, that seems awfully low.

[Carnos Jax]

http://www.kansas.com/2011/02/22/1730462...-this.html