Go-to analyst Richard Aboulafia said it Monday: http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/02/28/100bus_boeing28001.cfm the U.S. Air Force probably won’t order tankers before Boeing runs out of commercial 767s to build.
Key Quote: “If Congress buys more C-17s, it likely won’t have money for tankers, Aboulafia said. ‘That means of course the 767 dies and Boeing starts thinking about a 777 tanker. That’s not the end of the world for Boeing.’”
Now, the company itself believes that Aboulafia might be right, according to documents filed with this Security and Exchange Commission week. http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1141167115.html
Key Quote, from the Reuters story on the filing: “‘Given the timing and changing requirements for new USAF tankers, the prospects for the current 767 production program to extend uninterrupted into a USAF tanker contract (are) becoming less likely,’ Boeing said.”
Boeing entered the year with 30 767 orders on the books, and while it won’t confirm it, it’s been building them at about 10 a year. That means that — without new orders from the Air Force or airlines — the 767 line will end in late 2008.
Coincidentally, the plane that was to be the first U.S. Air Force KC-767 — Boeing calls it USAF 1 — was out on the Everett flight line yesterday, getting some routine maintenance. Boeing built the plane in anticipation it was going to get the 100-tanker deal in 2003. After the deal fell through, it put the completed air frame into storage.
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