Long Beach Plant Granted Six-Month Reprieve

In the words of a Boeing spokesman, the planemaker decided this week to put "some skin the game" -- by investing its own money to keep the Long Beach, CA plant that produces the C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane open until 2010, despite a lack of orders to keep the plant open past mid-2009.

"We're committed to keeping the line viable until we get funding," Boeing spokesman Rick Sanford said Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Times reports Boeing is betting big on a rumored order from the US Air Force in 2010. USAF officials have told Boeing they want about 30 more of the four-engined heavy-lifters -- that have proven themselves in service in Iraq, Afghanistan, and during hurricane relief efforts in the US -- but the Air Force can't place a new order until 2010 due to budget constraints.

"This is good news," said California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has been trying to find more funding for the USAF to purchase more C-17s.

Boeing's move also won approval from Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, who called the company's decision a "very good gesture on their part" in comments made at the Paris Air Show.

"We believe they've bought enough time that we can bridge over," Wynne added, in reference to a cost-benefit study now underway on whether to upgrade the Air Force's current fleet of aging C-5 Galaxy transports, or replace them outright with the smaller, but more serviceable, C-17s.

The decision to take a gamble, and continue to build planes without orders, will keep the Long Beach plant's 5,500 workers on the job for an additional six months. As Aero-News reported, Boeing had taken steps to shutter the plant, in anticipation of the last C-17 rolling off the line in 2009.

Keeping the plant online is a bold move, said Long Beach economic development manager Robert Swayze.

"It's a little bit nervy to think about building $200-million airplanes on spec, and that's really what they're doing," he said. "It's terrifically important to the Long Beach economy, but it's even more important to the regional economy. It's a regional economic asset."

Boeing says its cost to reopen the Long Beach line in 2010, should the Air Force deal become reality, would have been around $500 million.

"It's California's last major aircraft production facility," Swayze said. "California used to be the home of the aircraft industry, and this is what's left."

FMI: www.boeing.com/ids