3 ms·
Are you saying the cost etc. allocations in Boeing are underrepresenting the importance of commercial? Not quite sure I understand.
by RandomLensman 3y ago
Are you saying the cost etc. allocations in Boeing are underrepresenting the importance of commercial? Not quite sure I understand.
- lenerdenator 3y agoThey might be. They've been struggling to deal with the threat from Airbus for a decade or two now, and that means there's less of a guarantee their capital allocations to commercial planes will produce a profit. There's still quite a few brass in the US military who came of age in the immediate post-Vietnam era and remember the BUFFs being the core of the US bomber fleet, and will subconsciously favor Boeing over anything else. That means a better (though not guaranteed) likelihood of winning a contract. The issue is, a lot of their offerings for things like tankers, AWACS, general transport, VIP transit, etc. are based on airliners.
- dunmalg 3y agoAirbus is a threat, but they have a huge obstacle Boeing doesn't: they don't build planes in the US except for the A319-320-321. Any defense contract won with an Airbus airframe as its basis (e.g. NG's KC-X submission based on the Airbus A330 MRTT) also includes the expense and possible difficulty building a factory in the US to manufacture them. Boeing may have a bad reputation for screwing up manufacturing, but that's a known quantity vs. the giant question mark that is the quality of a theoretical Airbus factory--- run by a US defense contractor rather than Airbus--- that hasn't been built.