Boeing lands a big one
Web Posted: 09/11/2007 08:55 PM CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business...g.2a1eeed.html
Sean M. Wood
Express-News Business Writer
Boeing Support Systems San Antonio will hire 200 additional workers locally after the facility won a 10-year, $1.1 billion renewal of a maintenance contract for the KC-135 Stratotanker.
About 300 people in San Antonio work on the program that keeps the Air Force's main refueling jet in the air. Boeing Support Systems also has 80 people in Oklahoma and 75 people in Missouri who are part of the project team.
"For me, it's peace of mind," said David Ybarra, an aircraft electrician who works on the KC-135. "It's job security for the next 10 years."
Boeing will perform scheduled maintenance on the planes, which is needed every five years. Scheduled services include inspections, repairs, modifications and repainting. Unscheduled maintenance — about half the work — will also be performed whenever needed.
"This is a 50-year-old aircraft," said KC-135 program manager Larry Barger. "So we're looking for structural cracks. We do standard replacement of parts. We do repairs and skin replacement. Then we put it together, run system checks, and we have an Air Force crew that does functional test flights."
On the Web
* Boeing
* Richard Aboulafia
* Global Insight
* U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez
* U.S. Sen. John Cornyn
Barger said the planes take about 180 to 190 days to turn around, and the team will work on as many as 25 planes a year. San Antonio gets about one-third of the planes scheduled for maintenance, while the rest go to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. The first plane of the new contract is scheduled to arrive late this month.
The contract extension shouldn't come as a surprise, said Richard Aboulafia, aviation analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va.
"If you're the contractor and you've got a track record of working on the plane, you've got a strong advantage as the incumbent," Aboulafia said.
But workers have waited nearly three years to learn whether they would get to continue working on the refueling jet. Boeing was competing against two other companies: a Lockheed Martin unit in Georgia and Pemco Aviation Group Inc. in Alabama.
"This is a big relief," said Steve Sabolick, an aircraft mechanic at Boeing. "It gives us 10 years, and we can continue on for a little bit and then I can retire in San Antonio. That was the goal when I came here."
Sabolick retired from the Air Force in Tucson, Ariz., and moved to San Antonio to work for the pioneering local aviation firm Dee Howard Co. When Dee Howard went out of business, he came over to Boeing.
"I'm sure it's reassuring for them to hear they did get the contract," said John Scholle, an economist with Global Insight in Washington, D.C.
Boeing has had the maintenance contract on the KC-135 since 1998, and the San Antonio facility has completed work on 164 planes. It has completed every job on time, said recently appointed site manager Kevin Devine.
News of the contract comes on the heels of the July announcement that the San Antonio facility would get to work on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
"I'm proud that the Air Force has continued to recognize Boeing's efforts on this project by awarding such a great opportunity," said U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, in a statement. "I commend Boeing on their hard work throughout this process, and I'm pleased that they'll continue to have a strong presence in San Antonio."
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a statement: "Boeing has a proven track record of performance and reliability in support of our KC-135 fleet, so it was no surprise to hear that it had won the competition."
The first KC-135 Stratotanker was built in 1956 and the last was built in 1964. Barger said the Air Force plans to get another 40 years out of the planes.