Mr. Stonecipher is going to Washington.
In an interview this week with USA Today, new Boeing Co. chief Harry Stonecipher said his staff was trying to set up a meeting with U.S. Sen. John McCain to clear the air with the Arizona Republican, who has led the fight against the 767 tanker deal.
"I have to go sit with John McCain and understand what his concerns are and convince him that Harry is going to take care of those concerns the best that he can," Stonecipher said.
It wasn’t clear whether McCain would take the meeting. His press secretary did not return a telephone call on Tuesday.
In the rest of the interview, Stonecipher repeated things he’s said before: Restoring the Pentagon’s confidence in Boeing is Job 1.
"I have to put my face right in front of everyone who has a problem with us," he said, repeating almost word-for-word something he said during his first telephone press conference as CEO last month. "I’ve been here and done this before, and I’m here now to collect the problems and make sure every one will be addressed."
Stonecipher said he’s satisfied with Boeing’s reaction to the ethics scandals, both the stolen Lockheed-Martin documents that led to a loss of $1 billion in Pentagon launch contracts, and the job offer made to a former Pentagon weapons buyer that sparked the negotiation into the tanker deal.
Internal Boeing investigations uncovered both cases, he said, and in both cases, the company moved quickly to fire the individuals involved in alleged wrong-doing.
Stonecipher also defended the tanker deal, saying that much of the criticism is "a little unfair and has gotten blown all out of proportion."
"I’m the person who carried the original proposal to Washington," he said. "The whole idea was that the Air Force needed tankers very badly and could get them without having to pay a big development cost upfront.
"We’re not out to do harm to the taxpayer or to the government procurement system."
On the commercial jet side, the airline industry is starting to recover, Stonecipher said. As a result, "we’ll start accelerating production in ‘05," he predicted. "It could accelerate faster."
But Stonecipher said fighting for market share with Airbus — which this year delivered more jets than Boeing for the first time ever — would not be a top priority.
"When you start chasing market share, it’s a futile chase most of the time anyway," he said. "I’m more interested in running a profitable business."
European analysts point to the coming launch of the A380 as one reason why Airbus will maintain atop Boeing in the commercial jet market for years to come.
But a report last month in The Guardian newspaper of Manchester, England, suggests that all is not well with the new superjumbo.
Airbus was counting on Japanese carriers All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines to be major customers, the newspaper said, using it to carry up to 900 passengers on busy intra-city routes.
But ANA’s corporate planning director, Keisuke Okada, panned the jet, saying larger aircraft cause too many problems on the ground.
"Already, when I take a ride on a 747, I have to wait a long time to board," he told The Guardian. "It’s crazy stress."
ANA won’t consider buying the plane before 2010, chief executive Yoji Ohashi said.
Without orders from Japan, it’s going to be very difficult for Airbus to break even on the A380, the newspaper said. So far, Airbus has orders for 129, but it needs to sell 250 to break even.
"The A380 program can’t be judged a success without sales to Japanese airlines," analyst Andrew Doyle of Flight International told the newspaper.
And that’s bad news for British taxpayers, The Guardian said. The government there has loaned Airbus close to $895 million for the A380 — money that only has to be repaid if the big jet makes a profit.
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
