If anyone had any doubts about Boeing paying penalities for delays as a result of the 58-day IAM strike, in which the conventional wisdom was that Boeing did not, doubt is removed with this contract language we found (while looking for something else) between Southwest Airlines and Boeing.
“The Customer acknowledges that (i) the obligations of Boeing…are premised upon Boeing’s manufacturing capability prior to the IAM Action; and (ii) delay in the performance in any obligation of Boeing under this Purchase Agreement resulting from the IAM Action is an Excusable Delay….”
Now it is clear why they have put ‘…the impact of disruption caused by the recent Machinists’ strike…’ as the number one reason for the delay. They are probably trying to reduce the compensation payouts.
What about the fastener replacements? You can probably argue in court for a 57 day delay in delivery due to the IAM strike, plus a reasonable length of time to get operations back up and running again, but you can’t pin the entire 6 months solely on the IAM.
So I would expect at least three months’ worth of compensation is due to Southwest.
Humm….UKair (being from the UK) couldn’t be a little biased could he? Or maybe work for Airbus?