So what’s the Boeing Co. going to do on Monday about the 7E7?
I don’t know. As I write this, I’ve got a stuffed-up head and I’m running a fever, and the warnings on the side of the box of multisymptom flu reliever I just took say I shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery right now.
Even so, I just can’t see any scenario under which Boeing’s board of directors does not give the go-ahead on Monday for the company to start shopping the 7E7 to customers. There’s just no way. Airlines want a plane like the 7E7, and Boeing wants to transform the way it builds airplanes. The new jet satisfies both desires.
It will happen.
Where it will happen remains a question, no matter what my friends at the 50.5 percent locally owned Seattle newspaper say.
To be sure, I’ve never been able to figure how Boeing could justify locating final assembly of the 7E7 anywhere other than Everett. To me, it seemed a no-brainer. With budget hawks on the board of directors keeping a close eye on spending for the new jet program, why even think about spending close to a billion dollars just to replicate what Boeing’s already got here on Puget Sound? Makes no sense to me.
But then I started hearing more about Global TransPark in Kinston, N.C. It’s a 5,775-acre business park built around an expanded 11,000-foot-long runway. It was conceived in the early 1990s as a job-spawning air cargo hub that would boost economic activity in the rural eastern part of the state, but today only a handful of small air freight companies use the facility. It’s been a high-profile failure that’s cost the state more than $80 million.
Officials there are so eager to get the Dreamliner — and to finally get someone to locate at the park — that one legislator has proposed selling the entire thing to Boeing for $1.
Instead, the North Carolina Legislature met in special session Tuesday to consider a package that was to include, according to newspaper reports, a plan to give Boeing 600 acres of land (either free or in exchange for a token payment). The airport authority also is willing to put up the assembly plant for Boeing, and the state would kick in a couple of hundred million in tax breaks, job-training incentive and good old cash.
Factor in lower labor costs — North Carolina companies can get away with paying less because they don’t have to compete with a company like Boeing that pays industry-leading wages — and you’ve got the makings of a pretty compelling offer.
But what about that newspaper report? Well, let’s think about it for a minute.
From what I’m told, there are fewer than a dozen people at Boeing who really know what that site selection recommendation is. It could be that one of them just up and called a reporter for the fun of it. Or, more likely, the story was leaked to publicly reassure Washington state negotiators that they are still the front-runners in this contest and to let North Carolina know that if they’re serious, they’d best act fast.
Even if North Carolina does end up offering the moon and stars and Kitty Hawk itself, Boeing is leaving Olympia one last chance by emphasizing that it could drag the site selection process out, giving Gov. Gary Locke and the rest of the capital gang an eleventh-hour chance to improve Washington’s offer after seeing what North Carolina has come up with.
It seems to me, however, that the whole thing boils down to something that can’t readily be quantified on the bottom line.
The 7E7 isn’t a bet-the-company proposition like the 747 was. Boeing’s a bigger company now, and far more diverse.
But the 7E7 is the key to the future of Boeing’s commercial jet business, which has remained remarkably profitable during this downturn. Given its importance, is Boeing willing to take a gamble with an inexperienced North Carolina workforce? One that’s working three time zones away from the design and engineering headquarters in Everett?
That seems to fly in the face of everything Boeing’s done on its Everett and Renton factory floors to bring engineers and mechanics closer together.
There’s a compelling argument to be made for a fresh start in a new site. Build the new plane in Everett, proponents of this theory say, and you’re building the new plane the old way.
But to me, the reasons to build the 7E7 here are just as compelling. As analyst Richard Aboulafia put it last week, "The advantages of an experienced labor force, unquestionably the best geography, plenty of turf they already own and a state government whose future is at stake are overwhelming."
Boeing’s already trying to reinvent commercial aviation, so why reinvent the wheel as well? Putting final assembly in Everett makes a lot of sense. But maybe that’s just the NyQuil talking.
Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454; corliss@heraldnet.com
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