Boeing Lands Pentagon Contract

BY: JACQUELINNE MEJIA

You're watching multisource politics video news analysis from Newsy.


Boeing has landed a $30 billion deal with the Pentagon to build Air Force tanker jets.

“Yes, the Air Force has confirmed that it wasn’t even close. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn saying quote, ‘Boeing was a clear winner’. The newly-named KC-46A going to the company that was considered an underdog.”
(Video CNBC)

Boeing beat out favored winner EADS for the contract. We are analyzing the media’s reaction from KMOX radio, CNBC, the Pensacola News Journal, The Spokesman-Review and The Seattle Times.

First, Bloomberg’s chief Washington correspondent tells KMOX radio station in St. Louis- the contract win for Boeing came as a surprise even to seasoned financial analysts like himself.

“[...] a little surprised is given that so many analysts had suggested that EADS slightly had the edge here given the fact that they’d won this contract three years ago, only to have Boeing successfully challenge it. Surprised as well because the conventional wisdom here in Washington, EADS was certainly talking as if they’d won this contract and Boeing, for the most part was talking as if they were getting ready to protest.”

In terms of job creation, CNBC reports the deal will bring 50,000 jobs to 800 suppliers in 40 different states. An investment analyst discusses some of the biggest beneficiaries on the deal on CNBC.

“You want to focus on the subcontractors, you want to focus on the suppliers to Boeing, ‘cause the immediate deal is not that profitable to the big guy.”
...

“United Technologies, they’ve got a unit called Pratt &Whitney. They are the clear winner here in terms of putting the engine in the planes themselves.”

...

“RTI [RTI International] is the ticker. This is basically the company that supplies a lot of the titanium to the aerospace industry in general. You gonna build hundreds of planes, you are going to need a lot of titanium.”

Like all battles - there is always a winner- and a loser. An editor for the Pensacola News Journal writes- Boeing’s win means the loss of some American jobs - mainly those in the Southeast and South - that EADS would have supplied had it won the contract.

“For Northwest Florida, which hoped to get a jobs boost from the tanker being assembled in Mobile, it's one more indication that we're on our own when it comes to economic development.”

A business reporter for The Spokesman-Review writes- the Boeing victory is a blow to Alabama but a win for the middle class.

“For organized labor, which has become a punching bag for those who resent any lingering pockets of middle-class prosperity, the Boeing win was especially sweet. Unions do not get much of a friendly reception down South.”

Another aspect causing some turbulence among financial media analysts - whether the contract was won on a clean deal. A columnist for the Seattle Times sarcastically writes...

“When U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Loud, says the awarding of the tanker contract was ‘the best news of my professional career,’ did he mean his career as a politician, or his career as a full-time water boy for U.S. military contractors? OK, never mind. Same difference.”

EADS has 10 days from when the contract winner was announced to protest the Pentagon’s decision.

Get more multi-source politics video news analysis from Newsy.com

Transcript by Newsy.

1. By: newsydotcom
2. Categories News & Events
3. Views 38
4. Added :28-Feb-11
   Report This Video