Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
The Rise and Fall of Boeing, And The Way Back
By Scott Hamilton
Sept. 10, 2025, © Leeham News: The sequel to my book Air Wars, The Global Combat Between Airbus and Boeing, published today on Amazon (US and selected international markets, including France, the UK, Germany, Japan and elsewhere).
The Rise and Fall of Boeing And The Way Back recounts Boeing’s rise to dominance over the piston airliner era of Douglas Aircraft Co. and Lockheed as the modern jet age began in 1958. Boeing captured more than 60% of the market against Douglas and its corporate successor, the McDonnell Douglas Corp. (MDC). Europe’s upstart, Airbus Industries overtook MDC and in the 2000 decade it passed Boeing to become the Number 1 supplier in the world of commercial jetliners.
Conventional Wisdom of Boeing’s decline
Conventional wisdom marks the 1997 acquisition by Boeing of McDonnell Douglas as the beginning of Boeing’s decline, with Harry Stonecipher—the CEO of MDC who became president and COO of Boeing with the merger being named as the villain. As with most such thesis, the story is more complex. Rise and Fall explores the history of Boeing since the 1997 merger through the 737 MAX crisis, attempts by David Calhoun, named CEO in January 2020, to repair and restore Boeing, and the naming of his successor, Kelly Ortberg to complete the job Calhoun couldn’t do.
Ortberg was named CEO in August 2024, eight months after a door plug on a new Boeing 737-9 MAX blew out minutes after take-off. Only by luck and skill was disaster averted for those on the aircraft. But it sent Boeing into yet another new crisis that cost Calhoun and the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes their jobs and upheaval at the Board of Directors.
Ortberg’s arrival was 34 days before the contract with the powerful labor union, the IAM 751, expired. Members rejected a contract and walked off the job for 57 days. Boeing came close to bankruptcy during this period.
Surviving the strike by the narrowest of margins, Ortberg now is rebuilding Boeing, restoring trust and charting a path for the way back to greatness.
Rise and Fall continues the story told in Air Wars.
The Rise and Fall of Boeing, And The Way Back, is available here.
Air Wars, The Global Combat Between Airbus and Boeing, is available here.
I will order the book- I’m sure it will be a winner in the real history and I’ve known Scott for over a decade. As to the downfall of BA due to Stonecipher and other McDonnel -Douglas and Jack Welch – it will be interesting as to how deeply he has dug into that. The following is a true story- and I was the perp.
The following is a true story – humorous- and satirical
Happened in the year 2000 and a few years following
And I was the perp. I did contact the editor of the site
now known as Satirewire – and he simply asked to be credited properly. His original story was
about AT&T
++
Way back in the year 2000- I found a great piece of satire re IBM on the What I didn’t know then was that it had been modified from another site
( Now called Satirewire ) about AT&T
Yahoo stock board.
So I changed a few names to real execs at Boeing- and
posted it on the Yahoo BA stock board blog.
Boeing got so many emails saying is this
REAL ? that the corporate office had a person using her real name and
Boeing address on Yahoo stock board to explain that ONLY Boeing had official employment numbers !
It gets better- a few years later, I made a shareholder proposal for the Annual meeting
and as was the process, my wife and I were treated quite well with reserved seats at the
meeting. We were assigned a courtesy employee mainly to keep me away from the Press. It turned
out she was the person who had posted at the direction of the CEO! She was still chuckling !!
What follows is real-with a few name address redactions.
—–Original Message—–
From: “Koehler, Thomas J” <tho … To: "'xyzabc'"
Subject: RE: A little humour Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 11:22:18 -0800
XYZ :
This is just a note to let you know your message to Harry Stonecipher has
been received.
For what it's worth, you've re-confirmed for me that just about anyone can
pass along misinformation or sorry attempts at humor in the internet age!
Tom Koehler Executive Communication Company Offices
– – – – – – – – – –
Mon, May 29, 2000 1
From:XYZABC Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2000 2:33 PM
To: philip.m.condit …..
Cc: james.b.dagnon—— jerry.l.calhoun;
Subject: A little humour
I found this on the IBM message board written initially about Mr
Armstrong of AT&T. I couldn't resist changing a few words as shown
below, and posting it on Yahoo. As it turns out, I have
received several queries as to " is this for real ? ". Same thing happened
on the IBM yahoo pension board. This does NOT bode well for how
employees and others view the company or its executives.
(XYZABC)
more follows in reply
BOEING ANNOUNCES STEEP CUTBACKS Tukwilla Wa *** –
Boeing will reduce its workforce by an unprecedented 120 percent by the
end of 2000, believed to be the first time a major corporation has laid off
more employees than it actually has. Boeing stock soared more than
1 point on the initial news release. The reduction decision, announced
Wednesday, came after a year-long internal review of cost-cutting
procedures, said Boeing Chairman Harry Stonecipher.
The initial report concluded the company would save $1.2 billion by
eliminating 20 percent of its 140,000 employees.
Employee Reduction Plan
From there, said Stonecipher , “it didn’t take a genius to figure out that
if we cut 40 percent of our workforce, we’d save $2.4 billion, and if we cut
100 percent of our workforce, we’d save $6 billion. But then we thought,
why stop there? Let’s cut another 20 percent and save $7billion.
“We believe in increasing shareholder value, and we believe that by
decreasing expenditures, we enhance our competitive cost position and
our bottom line,” he added.
Boeing plans to achieve the 100 percent internal reduction through layoffs, attrition and early retirement packages.
To achieve the 20 percent in external reductions, the company plans to
involuntarily downsize 22,000 non-Boeing employees who presently work
for other companies.
“We pretty much picked them out of a hat,” said Stonecipher Among firms
Boeing has picked as “External Reduction Targets,” or ERTs, are;
Northrup Grumman, AMR Corporation, parent of American Airlines, Rolls
Royce, and Perkins Coie.
Boeing’s plan presents a “win-win” for the
company and ERTs, said Stonecipher, as any savings by ERTs would be
passed on to Boeing, while the ERTs themselves would benefit by the
increase in stock price that usually accompanied personnel cutback
announcements. “We’re also hoping that since, over the years, we’ve
been really helpful to a lot of companies, they’ll do this for us kind of as a
favor,” said Stonecipher.
Legally, pink slips sent out by Boeing would have no standing at ERTs
unless those companies agreed. While executives at ERTs declined to
comment, employees at those companies said they were
not inclined to cooperate.
“This is ridiculous. I don’t work for Boeing. They can’t fire me,” said Kaili
Blackburn, a flight attendant with American Airlines.
Reactions like that, replied Stonecipher, “are not very supporting.”
Inspiration for Boeing’s plan came from previous cutback initiatives, said
company officials. In January of 1999, for instance, the company
announced it would trim 40,000 jobs over two years.
However, just a year later, Boeing said it had already reached its quota.
“We were quite surprised at the number of employees willing to leave
Boeing in such a hurry, and we decided to build on that,” Stonecipher
said.
Analysts credited Stonecipher’s short-term vision, noting that the
announcement had the desired effect of immediately increasing Boeing
share value. However, the long-term ramifications could
be detrimental, said Bear Stearns analyst Beldon McInty. “It’s a little early
to tell, but by eliminating all its employees, Boeing may jeopardize its
market position and could, at least theoretically, cease to exist,” said
McInty.
Stonecipher, however, urged patience: “To my knowledge, this hasn’t
been done before, so let’s just wait and see what happens.”
END !
So what really changed since then ??
I think Frank P should pay attention to this one!
His logic is that Boeing’s loosing money on each aircraft so they should quit making aircraft and wallah, quit loosing money (ahem, other than all those pesky light and power and excec costs).
Reality is Boeing is probably breaking even now, its not the price of aircraft, its the price of selling out the company. ergo, major debt and nothing to show for it.
I should amend that, they do have the MAX and 787 and 777X. Price a MAX higher than an A320 and see how many you sell.
The real info to look at is the question ? is debt coming down and how is our cash flow?
But no you can’t tell a customer they will pay 100 million for a MAX, because someone said they had to retire all costs on the next 50 aircraft built (same for 787 and 777X).
But yea, cutting your way to prosperity is pretty funny
Boeing can’t deliver 777X or a MAX7 or MAX10. I guess a costumer changing ordered MAX10 to MAX9 may also get something in return.
Why can’t Boeing sell a MAX for a higher price than an A320? So Airbus gets more for each aircraft? Why do costumers are willing to pay more?
I have the feeling A350F will reach its costumers earlier than 777-9.
Is/was BA deliberately over-discounting in order to (try to) win/keep certain customers?
Average revenue per frame is well below the figure at AB.
Ongoing loss on every BA frame that goes out the door (averaged).
Analyst consensus is for yet another consolidated loss in Q3. EPS keeps getting revised downward.
Makes you wonder.
I know its going to be ignored, but for those who are interested.
Boeing underbid Hawaiaan Air on the 787 order. Airbus response was you can’t go below profit margins. Pretty weird, like there was a rule. Boeing did.
Unlike some who say otherwise based on nothing, it was not at a loss, they just made 5 million instead of 10 million.
Boeing saw it a chance to get more orders down the road and make more money, so they went for it.
And that is what has happened. Now Alaska has increased the order and added the -10 to the mix.
Boeing is selling aircraft on delivery sooner. If you want to convert and airline, then the costs are high and its a tough hurdle be it B to A or A to B.
And it can and will change on a dime. The looming economic disasters headed our way is going to turn orders into useless confetti.
Airbus will have to make decisions, Boeing is not so high that they can’t sustain. There is a desire to retire older NG and A320CEO so there is slots to be taken but not nearly as many.
@TW “you can’t go below profit margins”
It depends on how you calculate “profit”. Boeing sales department may have just calculated with production costs while Airbus may looked at it and decided: we need also to repay financial costs and development costs with each sell. Hawaiaan Air was no loss for Airbus but for Boeing.
@TW ” If you want to convert ”
The airline ordered MAX10 but Boeing was only able to deliver MAX9. Therefore Boeing converted and paid the airline. That could be far cheaper than the price tag for none delivery.
@Bubba2
“… any savings by ERTs would be
passed on to Boeing, while the ERTs themselves would benefit by the increase in stock price that usually accompanied personnel cutback announcements.”
No joke! Trump & Co. must have been inspired by similar ideas, think about the “trade deals” with “allies” like the Japanese and the Korean: they pay up hundreds of billion investments in the US at the sole discretion of the POTUS, and like 90% of the profits generated go to America.
@Trans
Can you work out the details how much BA/BCA is losing for each aircraft delivered?
BCA
Q1 2025
Operating margin (6.6%)
* “BCA claimed negative margins of ($537m) during the quarter, however on a unit-cost basis, the loss was ($2.933bn)”
Apparently BA is selling their aircraft at prices so low that they can’t make any profit even under their magic black box—program accounting (where COGS is largely imaginary came straight out from management’s financial model built on spreadsheets. (Remember Efron, or Bear Sterns or any major banks/fin institutions by 2008??)
Tell me which airline is willing to pay more for the MAX than the A320 family? Name one, just one, please.
Boeing can only maintain like “less than 40%” of market share in the NB market.
Does Boeing also discount its ongoing support, spare parts etc at the same levels that it discounts it’s airframes? If not, then it might not be so bad to sell at or near cost if you can make it up in ongoing support revenue.
Congrats Scott.
I have read enough accounts of people writing books and how difficult it is and time consuming.
Not being a full time book author.
Its two amazing books by Scott and I tip my hat to him for what he has done (oh and building a successful company on the side!).
Hi Scott, the book is not available in Amazon UK.
I’ll check into that. Thanks.
Hi Scott,
If you wish to have your book translated in French, this is a job for me!
Sorry, it is available, it’s just under a different author ID, Mr Scott Hamilton, instead of Scott Hamilton. You will get more cross-sales if you get that corrected to be the same author. Currently, when navigating from Air Wars to other releases from the same author it comes with a blankety blank. Anyone who bought your previous books will get notified if they follow you, and your new book will be suggested in the Amazon and kindle app. It’s worth pursuing.
Also, beware that the kindle edition seems not to be available either in the UK.
I just received the book in France from Amazon.
One first comment about Caravelle: You write that it had a limited success Actually 279 were sold which is quite impressive for a european plane in the sixties.
It is interresting to note that Douglas signed an agreement with Sud Aviation (Toulouse) in 1960 to assemble this successful machine in the US. United Airlines ordered 20.
That gave Douglas unlimited access to all design drawings.
Pretty useful as they were designing the DC9.
Mature readers of Leeham News are certainly aware of the many similarities between the two birds….
Your book is extremely complete, congratulations!
However one significant plane is missing: the MERCURE from DASSAULT.
A 737 100 200 competitor, with more capacity more comfort (nearly the same fuselage diameter as A320) and faster.(excellent wing)
It was designed to allow longer fuselage (up to 240 PAX) and bigger enfines. However only 12 were made as it was focused on short trips, and most airlines prefer versatile machines.
737 had a longer range, and BOEING very soon developped larger versions and a better wing.
A CFM56 new engine option was considered, which could have been very successful but financing was a problem and DASSAULT re focused on his highly successful Falcon range of business jets, and MIRAGE military machines.
It is now.
Another point about chapter 12: you do not mention an important point in choosing MAX vs new SA plane.
Due to grandfather, 737 is keeping quite a lot of safety features from the 60s, which gives a weight bonus of 1200 to 1500kg vs the A320, and possibly more vs a more recent design .
Of course, these safety features bring benefits when crash happen, but a weight bonus brings $$$$$ every day: more PAX, less fuel, …
This certainly plaid a role…
Boeing’s way back is the 737-10. Probably the lowest seat mile cost aircraft where it can fly with reliable engines. Similar with the 787-10ER that airlines are waiting for with similar seat-mile competitive advantage for longer range. If Airbus gets too big they get a supplier pricing advantage and Boeing has to design a new light and cheap composite aircraft with new engines för 250-325 pax to kill both A330neo and the A321neo.
“Killing”is what got Boeing here.Grind them down slowly with a bit of help from geo politics and the American taxpayer
No doubt the 737-10 will offer great CASM and commonality with existing 737 fleets. Launched 8 years ago the leadtime extension probably costed it significant MAX follow up orders. Few airlines operate only 737 as NB these days.
RE: a new Boeing light and cheap composite aircraft with new engines för 250-325 pax to kill both A330neo and the A321neo, that would be great.
But the signs are that Airbus is firmer on a new NB program than Boeing at this stage. Fáury more or less announced launch in a few years and EIS in the mid 2030s.
If the A220 family (incl -500) covers up to 150-165 seats 3000NM, a new Airbus NB will probably slightly larger than the A319-A320-A321 family, its base aircraft probably seating 200 in a reasonable single class configuration and the biggest offering credible 250+ seat capacity .
It would not be suprized if either or both A&B new NBs will have seagull wings, 40-41m full wingspans, 3-3 cabins, AKH capable lower decks, composite pannel skins, lots of thermoplasts and BPR 14-15 / OPR >60 engines. TRL5-6 technology..
Scott.
I bought the book.
Well done.
I’d like to order Scott H’s new book, but prefer not to deal with A**zon. Is there currently an alternative source?
I purchased Scott’s first offering at Barnes and Noble, FYI.
Right now Rise and Fall is only available on Amazon.
Oooooo. Is a Kindle edition coming?
Yes, ebook is coming. Work in progress
RE ” Thomas Benedict
September 12, 2025
Does Boeing also discount its ongoing support, spare parts etc at the same levels that it discounts it’s airframes? If not, then it might not be so bad to sell at or near cost if you can make it up in ongoing support revenue. ”
PROBABLY – thats what Airbus did in the late 90’s. IMHO itd is the Gillete Razor Blade financial model. Sell the razors at cost or less – make the real money in the unique razor blades. Consider the b52 and kc135 tankers for but one example. But it does mean that the base product MUST be quality.
For airplane programs- the first dozen or two delivered are at a loss and then the breakeven quantity can be more fully defined.
But the Welchites wanted all deliveries to breakeven or make money, thus the faster and cheaper to boost the stock price mantra. Thus was pushed into oblivion the REAL DER system to be replaced by the current mess and look at the background of the FAA type who ran the ‘ new ‘ method.
“… it might not be so bad to sell at or near cost.”
BA is selling well *below* cost — we can see that every time it publishes its quarterly results.
Once again that is not factual.
As a whole Boeing is loosing money.
Break even is the cost and labor to build an aircraft. You then take the bold LEAP and determine that is why Boeing is loosing money.
So lets add it up, the 777X is not delivering at all. You can’t complete a transaction until you provide product.
The MAX is probably about break even. You can sell for something under an A320 but you are not going to sell for more than an A320. Ergo, the costs of the MAX program are hanging out there.
787 competes against the A330 and as Hawaiian showed, you may have to sell for less than Airbus profit margin they won’t go below.
Boeing is buying back Spirit. Just because of that they can’t jack prices up to double to make up for that buy.
Boeing has lost money because of management gutting the company.
The only way to get back to profits is to quit doing that and they are making progress. The debt is going down so even by your logic its not at a loss.
In the end a company as a whole makes or looses money on paying for its loans, credit lines, building costs (or sales per Jepesen) light, power, water and sewer as well as labor and materials (not all aircraft, they make satellites as well).
Loosing money on the Capsule gets into the same P&L as the aircraft side. You don’t change your aircraft pricing (cannot) to make up that loss. You fix it, write it off and or sell it off.
Who knows better??
BA declared reach forward loss on the 777x program!! Sigh. Adds up to like $9 billion!?! 🙈
Once again, explain how did BCA lose like $4.5 billion this year?
“So lets add it up, the 777X is not delivering at all. You can’t complete a transaction until you provide product.”
“Once again that is not factual.”
Let’s see:
Boeing financial results 2025 Q2, page 1, table 4.
Commercial airplanes:
Deliveries: 150
Revenue: $10.874B
Loss from operations (declared): $557M
Loss from operations (unit): $2.9B
So, using simple arithmetic, we divide the loss by the number of delivered commercial planes, to obtain:
Loss per frame (declared): $3.71M
Loss per frame (unit): $19.3M
Similar basic arithmetic yields:
Revenue per frame: $72.5M
That’s a unit loss per frame of:
19.3/72.5 × 100 = 26.6%
26.6% average negative margin per plane.
🙈
@Bubba2:
You have some aspect wrong. The at a loss selling extends into hundreds of aircraft not the first few.
Massive discounts on the first group to get sales going are more than normal. But break even is down the road well into production.
Airbus built 254 x A380 and their press statements said they were close to breaking even.
What I do not know is does that include the investment costs and at what interest rate? You put 10 billion (low side) into an aircraft build or you could put it in Money Market funds (or some such) and get 2-3% interest (all varies depending on the Fed Interest )
In theory Airbus was getting maybe 150 million per A380 with discounts (not the give away sale at the start).
A single aisle is still going to cost 12 billion or so and you get a lot less per hull. So where break even is? 400-500?
BA enjoys too much of its own kool-aid, pricing aircraft with est. costs from the management’s own financial models (btw their engineers considered that’s impossible to achieve). That’s why BA is great at getting orders but struggled to deliver profits. It’s not a profit machine, only to deliver fortunes for their upper management thru stock options.
Yes it was. So quit harping on what was and lets focus on what is.
If done right Boeing can build aircraft and return profits. We know it was done wrong, I am pondering just saving that and cut and paste it automatically for you and Bryce because its the same record skip over and over and over again.
Granted you don’t know about record skip.
Too many here have a wrong conception of per unit cost of aircraft, it’s not a fixed amount.
“lets focus on what is.”
Can you explain how did BCA lose like $4.5 billion *this year*?
How about the 747-8 boondoggle? Do you have a blind spot so large that a 747-8 can get away without being noticed?
How much did Boeing lose on the program?
“Boeing wrote off $1.19 billion in the quarter. It previously wrote off $885 million and $70 million during the second half of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.”
> [Boeing spokesman] Alder said Boeing must “reduce the cost of designing and *building our airplanes*” in order for the company “to win in the market, fund our growth and operate as a healthy business.”
Boeing’s 737 narrowbody jet and its 777 widebody jet have been the two cash cows for the commercial-airplane unit for years.
However, Airbus’ A320 last year won a 60 percent share in the narrowbody market against the 737, *forcing Boeing to reduce pricing and profit margins on that program*.
BTW it’s a report from the Seattle Times of Feb 2016
https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/3c467556-d059-11e5-a1c7-6bb7798cc8e9.jpg
Has BA lost the battle in NB market?
Flight cycles July 2025 (from AW)
A32N/21N 447k*
A320 840k
73M 236k
73N 765k
Consider that there’re hundreds of aircraft grounded by GTF engines
transworld said “You have some aspect wrong. The at a loss selling extends into hundreds of aircraft not the first few.”
you are correct- my goof was I should have been more specific. I was describing the ” assembly manhours ” curve against planned. Historically, it has taken 1 to 2 dozen aircraft to come down the assembly manhours per plane (model) to stabilize such that future ‘hours/plane’can be used to establish a reasonable assembly time/production rate in existing facilities. Significant design /assembly screwups that MUST be redone and incorporated before full certification can easily double or triple the ‘ learning curve ‘ and of course the $$$$$$ cost – can u spell 7 late 7 ?
I haven’t bought the book yet but likely will. The title evokes Gibbon’s treatise on that other great empire, whose collapse was largely attributed to the rise of a new religion that undermined the state.
In the case of our fallen empire the new Gods at whose temples the Being aristocracy have been paying homage are Cost Reduction and Cash Flow.
Boeing appears to be on course to fix it’s manufacturing problems. This means management has finally accepted that, insofar as production is concerned, what’s cheapest in the short term is not cheapest in the longer term, ie, fixing stuff out of sequence to throw planes out the door is not a viable long term strategy.
But has Boeing learned this lesson with respect to engineering and suppliers? I think this remains TBD. In other words, will management now recognize a value worth paying for in experienced engineering and suppliers, or will the army of beancounters loosed by the Welchites remain in control. Will the bias remain toward cutting experience as unnecessary overhead? The next time Boeing farms out a work package of engineering or of hardware will it automatically go to the lowest bidder, even if the bidder is inexperienced and lacks the ability to execute per schedule and budget?
I think this is a more complicated issue than fixing the product woes, and it gets to the heart of whether the next airplane development program will be a success or a financial fiasco on the scale of the 787.
I am hopeful but not sanguine. Once the army of the beancounter white walkers has overrun the kingdom, how are they to be expelled or at least restrained?
Well, BA appears to be quite happy to let 3200 experienced employees in St. Louis continue their strike rather than offer more amenable terms.
So, not sure that the penny has dropped yet.
This is true. The beancounters would still rather lose $500m in a fight with labor than spend $200m for a peaceful accommodation.
This is something that’s now causing a nightmare for BDS, LM, NG and other US defense companies:
“Germanium Prices Soar to 14-Year High”
“Prices of the metal germanium, critical for making infrared military equipment including in fighter jets and missiles, hit a 14-year high this month as the Chinese export restrictions of critical and rare earth metals are hitting the supply chains of the West’s military systems.
“The market has dried up and there is panic among customers who are desperate to find supply of germanium, traders have told the Financial Times.
“As a result of the supply crunch from China, first announced in 2023, the price of germanium has soared to $5,000 per kilogram this month, five times higher than the $1,000 per kg price in early 2023, per data from price reporting agency Fastmarkets cited by FT.
“The current price is the highest in Fastmarkets data going back to 2011.
“China dominates the global market for critical minerals, putting Western defense manufacturers and their governments in a rather awkward position of depending on China for key raw material supplies amid tense bilateral relations.
“The heavily concentrated supply of critical minerals in a handful of countries and China’s export controls are raising the risk of “painful disruptions” in the market, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in its new annual report, Global Critical Minerals Outlook.
“Despite major deals and government support in the West for building domestic supply chains, China has raised its market share over the past few years, the IEA’s report found.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Germanium-Prices-Soar-to-14-Year-High.html
Got the book- part way thru great read and from experience at/with BA before and a bit after the 1996-7-8 downfall, seems to be accurate. Although I am still reading – maybe I can add a bit re the 767 ( 2000-2004 ) tanker game and lease arrangement and so called ‘ costs’. The then military junta had claimed that it would be impractical to ‘ wall off ‘ part of Everett so as to accomodate a military version. So their solution was for everett to build a very stripped down but flyable 767(tanker) at Everett, and after flight test, deliver it/sell it at Everett to ” military ” division, fly it to wichita- take it apart and install all the real military goodies, tanks, boom, operators station, special wiring etc – put it back together and ‘ lease’ or perhaps ‘sell ‘ to military.
Can you count the extra $$$$$$$ ? Keep in mind by 2004-5 they were well on the way of delivering a few 767 tankers to Italy and a few to Japan. Those did have a few problems but were ‘ fixed ‘ and I THINK they are still in service.
And just what was happening at Seattle Thompson facility at that time since B2 wing parts and tooling had been long gone. ?
So 15 years later- they somehow managed to build P8 in that facility, and 767 tankers in Everett. P8 was/is better and stable and barely so is 767 tanker.
( despite still too many Jack welchites in significant seats )
A bit more from early ( 1992 ) from a good friend of mine since deceased. It is a long but detailed Congressional record of testimony before the Senate on March 11, 1992 regarding offloading aerospace work and technical/designb capability, in this case to Taiwan and reads almost like deja view.
” THE MCDONNELL DOUGLAS-TAIWAN AEROSPACE DEAL (Senate – March 11, 1992)”
https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/taiwan/1992/s920311-taiwan.htm
and starts like this
” Mr. President, I ask to place the testimony of Mr. Daniel Hartley, president of the Seattle Professional Engineering Employees Association, and Larry Clarkson, vice president of the Boeing Co. that they delivered to the Joint Economic Committee last week in the Record at this point.
The testimony follows:
Statement of Mr. Daniel B. Hartley
My name is Daniel B. (Dan) Hartley. I am an engineer . . . who has worked in the trenches of engineering for over 35 years. I speak from the viewpoint of the working engineer, one who has also been chosen by my peers for my position as President of the 46-year old Seattle Professional Engineering Employees Association (SPEEA). Although I work full time at Boeing, my views are my own and may or may not agree with any Boeing testimony. I am not trying to sell any particular product to the government. I am not requesting money. I’m not asking for some special favors. To me it seems like everyone who comes here is always saying how to cut the pie. We engineers want to tell how to make the pie bigger…”
Goes on and IMHO wellwworth reading and relating to Scotts excellent history of Boeing downfall.