Well, D’uh… moving out of antifa seattle
Well, D’uh… moving out of antifa seattle
OOps, my bad. i should have written ‘moving out of blm chicago’.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-se…
You can understand moving out of Seattle to someplace east. Every business trip to the east requires a 5 hr flight. That makes getting on a plane early morning flying to a lunch time meeting and return home in time for dinner with family and kids difficult. Day trips in the eastern US are common. Works well for sales etc. And is good for family life. Can go to kids events and still get the job done.
But Chicago headquarters puts management far from engineering in a traditionally engineering led company. That could be part of the problem with the 737max. And 777?
Now that FAA regulation and military sales are important to the company, location near DC (in Virginia) seems to fit with current needs. Sounds like the Chicago building is for sale. Maybe at nice capital gains.
Now that FAA regulation and military sales are important to the company, location near DC (in Virginia) seems to fit with current needs. Sounds like the Chicago building is for sale. Maybe at nice capital gains.
The official excuse for the move to Chicago was to get “closer to their customers” (UAL). I take the move to DC as a decision that most of their loot in the future is expected to flow from DoD, not the commercial sector. Do they think DoD is more tolerant of cost overruns, delays, and below spec performance, than commercial airlines? Lockheed generates one cluster after another for DoD, and gets away with it, so maybe BA management is right?
Steve
1 Like
Paul,
You can understand moving out of Seattle to someplace east. Every business trip to the east requires a 5 hr flight. That makes getting on a plane early morning flying to a lunch time meeting and return home in time for dinner with family and kids difficult. Day trips in the eastern US are common. Works well for sales etc. And is good for family life. Can go to kids events and still get the job done.
But Chicago headquarters puts management far from engineering in a traditionally engineering led company. That could be part of the problem with the 737max. And 777?
Now that FAA regulation and military sales are important to the company, location near DC (in Virginia) seems to fit with current needs. Sounds like the Chicago building is for sale. Maybe at nice capital gains.
Yes, I’m not persuaded that the move to Illinois ever made sense from the company’s perspective, but a former CEO apparently wanted to live there. What’s less clear is whether a location in the “National Capital Region” (NCR) makes more sense than a location near the company’s design, engineering, and flight test teams, all of which are based in the Seattle area. I also doubt that day trips to launches at the Kennedy Space Flight Center on Cape Canaveral, Florida, are a significant issue because there are also launches going out of Vandenberg AFB in California.
Norm.
Steve,
The official excuse for the move to Chicago was to get “closer to their customers” (UAL).
Yes, that was the official excuse.
But what was the real motivation?
Norm.
Chicago is an easy airport to fly out of. Nonstop flights to most places. And centrally located. Of course the Illinois financial problem is a worry. Eventually tax payers will have to pay.
Chicago is also convenient to the McDonnel-Douglas acquisition in St Louis.
Yes, that was the official excuse.
But what was the real motivation?
My thought at the time was that Condit had so botched the commercial division in the late 90s, losing money in a sales boom, when they should have been making record profits, that he didn’t want to show his face in the local business community anymore.
The Welch acolytes, starting with McNerney, that have been running BA are openly anti-union. It crosses my mind that their ultimate goal is to move entirely out of Seattle, and into the deep south of “right-to-work” laws, and a cheap workforce. Didn’t I read, somewhere along the line, that the 78s coming off the North Charleston line were so poorly built they had to be flown to Everett so that the people who knew what they were doing could get the planes sorted out?
The FAA doesn’t even trust BA to do decent QC at North Charleston, to catch the poor work the cheap workforce does.
FAA will conduct final inspections on new Boeing 787 Dreamliners
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/15/faa-will-conduct-final-inspe…
But, to Welchian management, all the matters is the labor is cheap and non-union, so, I think abandonment of Seattle is in the cards.
Steve
2 Likes
Paul,
Chicago is an easy airport to fly out of. Nonstop flights to most places. And centrally located. Of course the Illinois financial problem is a worry. Eventually tax payers will have to pay.
That’s just as true of pretty much any hub airport, including Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA).
Chicago is also convenient to the McDonnel-Douglas acquisition in St Louis.
Yes, and the former CEO of McDonnel-Douglas became the CEO of Boeing when the CEO of Boeing at the time of the acquisition stepped aside. (He lasted until the board “accepted his resignation” after it came to light that he was engaging in sexual relations with a direct subordinate.)
But how much remains of the former McDonnel-Douglas facility in St. Louis, anyway? Boeing revised the DC-9/MD-80/MD/90 design and dubbed it the 717, selling perhaps a few hundred before terminating production, and all of the rest of the McDonnel-Douglas models vanished with the acquisition.
Norm.
Harvy Stonecifer was his name i think.
Boeing St Louis is still home to fighter jets but they do worry about the future now that Lockheed Martin seems to dominate the fighter business.
I don’t think the passenger jets were ever made in St Louis. They came Douglas in California.
McDonnell Aircraft from the days of Mr Mac were very into fighter jets. They were the largest employer in Missouri.
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Paul,
Harvy Stonecifer was his name i think.
Not sure about the spelling of the surname, but that’s the right phonetic pronunciation.
But he does not deserve to have his name mentioned – and I seriously question the wisdom of appointing the x-CEO of a company that failed (which is why Boeing could buy it so cheaply) as the CEO of the acquiring company.
Boeing St Louis is still home to fighter jets but they do worry about the future now that Lockheed Martin seems to dominate the fighter business.
The decision to acquire the F-35 rather than Boeing’s design for the joint strike fighter (JSF) seems more than a little political. I’m not a exactly fond of the use of fans rather than vectored jets to supply the lift – Boeing’s design seemed technologically superior. But the DOD tends to like to ensure that it can get what it needs from multiple sources.
Norm.
Boeing’s design seemed technologically superior. But the DOD tends to like to ensure that it can get what it needs from multiple sources.
iirc, the biggest problem with the BA JSF was that it could not transition in flight from vertical takeoff to supersonic flight.
St Louis is still making F-15s and F-18s. Recent DoD order for the 15 has the smell of welfare.
Feb 22, 2021
Boeing’s revived F-15 program to deliver first U.S. order in decades
…the first order of new F-15 fighter jets from the U.S. Air Force in nearly 20 years,
“It’s a bit of a mystery how it got back in the budget,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at aviation research firm Teal Group.
https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/boeings-revived-f-15…
I remember how Congress kept appropriating money for more F-14s, long after the Navy didn’t want any more, until then-SecDef Cheney ordered the tooling destroyed. Sticks in my mind money was appropriated for more C-17s than the Air Force wanted too.
Steve
Steve,
iirc, the biggest problem with the BA JSF was that it could not transition in flight from vertical takeoff to supersonic flight.
That does not make much sense. You have to go through subsonic flight to get from VTOL mode to supersonic flight or vice versa.
Norm.
That does not make much sense. You have to go through subsonic flight to get from VTOL mode to supersonic flight or vice versa.
Apparently there was something about the design of the BA entry that changes had to be made on the ground, to either make the plane capable of VTOL, or supersonic flight. The plane could not do both in one configuration.
Steve