Playing with fire

The renewed effort by Boeing and its supporters to focus on the WTO ruling against Airbus on illegal subsidies in the KC-X competition (see preceding post) is playing with fire. The hyperbole by Washington State’s Members of Congress… Read More

US favors negotiating trade dispute

Crain’s Chicago Business reported yesterday (April 6) that US Trade Rep. Ron Kirk wants to negotiate an end to the EU-US trade dispute over Airbus and Boeing subsidies. We only just spotted this–there hadn’t been any pick-up by… Read More

Get over it and move on (Part 2)

A flurry of activity has been happening on the air force tanker front while we’ve been in Geneva, Switzerland, (working, not playing). Unfortunately, we think the activity has all been rather sad. In the aftermath of the World… Read More

WTO Airbus ruling due Tuesday

Update, March 24, 10:15PM Central European Time: The reaction to the WTO Final Report at the Aircraft Finance Conference is a Big Yawn, even among Americans here in the Geneva, Switz, venue. As one person with close ties… Read More

Tanker Contract: Follow the law

Update, Feb. 1: The newspaper The Hill, which covers Capitol Hill, reports the USAF plans to award a contract for the KC-X this summer, sticking (more or less) to the timetable originally projected. Secretary Robert Gates also plans… Read More

Refueling Dr. Strangelove

The Draft Request for Proposal for Round 3 of the KC-X tanker competition isn’t even out yet and the procurement process is already perverted. The DRFP is thought to be ready for release tomorrow (September 24). The USAF… Read More

WTO “anachronistic”

We are back from a trip to Europe, where we had the opportunity to sit down with Thomas Enders, CEO of Airbus. We talked about (among other things) the WTO case and the implications for Airbus on funding… Read More

WTO rules prevent exclusion of Airbus in tanker bid

Update, Sept. 10: When the WTO Interim Report finding Airbus violated certain rules against certain subsidies under the WTO, Boeing supporters were quick and prolific to jump on leaked reports and briefings and some called for the US… Read More

Trying to make sense of WTO ruling

This Reuters report tries to make sense of the conflicting claims by the EU and Americans over who won what in the finding issued Friday by the WTO three judge panel. Here is a somewhat different version of… Read More

EADS Earnings Preview

EADS, parent of Airbus, announces its 2Q09-1H09 earnings July 28. Here are some topics that ought to be covered and questions analysts and reporters should ask: