HeraldNet: Boeing vs. Northrop: Tanker ad wars, ad nauseam



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Aerospace Blog

July 22, 2008

Northrop Grumman (click to enlarge)

Northrop Grumman has released its latest Air Force tanker advertisement.

Boeing vs. Northrop: Tanker ad wars, ad nauseam

Posted at 10:43 am by Michelle Dunlop

They're back at it.

Both Northrop Grumman and the Boeing Co. have launched new advertisements following the Pentagon’s recent decision to reopen the Air Force aerial refueling tanker contract.

Northrop’s latest ad reads: "Assembly Required vs. Built. Tested. Flown."

In Northrop’s words, the advertisement "is part of a series designed to point out that only the Northrop Grumman team has built, tested and flown its aircraft and refueling boom for the U.S. Air Force. Boeing has not and, as the ad suggests, assembly is still required. As a previous ad in the series pointed out, the tanker Boeing proposed to the United States Air Force only exists on paper."

Boeing released its ad: "Designed, Built, Tested, Flown and Delivered." The company highlights its KC-767 tankers for Japan. The advertisement goes on to say: "AS ANYONE CAN SEE, KC-767 TANKERS COULDN’T
BE MORE REAL."

You can view Boeing's advertisement below.

The Department of Defense decided earlier this month to rebid the $35 billion deal. The original competition was found to be flawed by Air Force errors. The only thing that’s certain about the latest contest: another round of inflammatory ads by the two defense contractors.

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(No heading)
The most effective counter ad Boeing could make would be to show a pictured of the Everett facility captioned "Where 767s are being made today" and then show a picture of the proposed (empty) location of the EADs factory in Alabama captioned "Where KC-30s are being built today."

Being in the DC area, I've seen all the print ads and heard the radio ads. The radio ads are particularly obnoxious because EADs (Northrop is just a front operation to me...) refuses to acknowledge the fact that the contract has been invalidated. So, to say the Air Force chose their plane is a joke.
Richard Berry | Jul 23, 2008 6:26 am | 0 replies | View all | Post reply | Request removal

Negotiations
Boeing has an internal blog for managers from Doug Kight, their lead negotiator. The latest post is:

July 21, 2008
Clearing the air on the pension multiplier

One of our managers asked: Doug: I'm hearing employees say that they expect the pension multiplier to be increased to $100/month per year of service. As a manager, I don't know how to respond to that. Is $100 a reasonable expectation?

First, this is a great question on an important issue that I want to address.

As we said in the IAM Platform for Discussions, our current pension plan—combined with the Boeing VIP savings plan and Social Security—provides employees with the opportunity to earn more in retirement than while working. Very few companies offer this level of financial security in retirement.

We recognize how important the issue of pension benefits will be in the new contract. We’ve stated that Boeing is willing to discuss increasing the pension multiplier. How much the pension multiplier may increase is something I can’t discuss until we make a formal proposal to the IAM leaders.

What I can tell you that an increase to $100 is clearly not reasonable.

To put your question into perspective, since 1999 we’ve negotiated three contracts with the IAM. The pension multiplier has increased by $10 in each of those contracts. Currently, the pension multiplier is $70 per month for each year of service. When we opened negotiations on May 9, we said that continuing to increase the multiplier at a rate of $10 every contract was not sustainable. We still believe that.

So, is it realistic for employees to expect that the pension multiplier will increase this contract? Yes.

Is it realistic for employees to expect that the pension multiplier will increase by $30 in one contract? Absolutely not. That type of increase is not realistic and not sustainable.

Thanks for your question. I hope this helps you—and other managers—respond to this issue in communicating with your teams.

Doug
John Smith | Jul 22, 2008 12:47 pm | 0 replies | View all | Post reply | Request removal

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