Air Force Makes Deal For Boeing’s C-17 Jet, Keeping Facility Alive

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Air Force Makes Deal For Boeing’s C-17 Jet, Keeping Facility Alive

By DAVID GREENBERG

Staff Reporter

The Air Force has agreed to purchase 60 additional C-17 cargo planes from Boeing Co., keeping the defense contractor’s Long Beach plant at its full 7,500-employee staffing for another six years, Air Force and company officials said.

In order to get the contract extension, Boeing agreed to slash $46 million from the price of the $198 million plane by implementing several cost-cutting measures at the local plant and using foreign suppliers more frequently.

Air Force officials, who claim they need a total fleet of 222 C-17s, said the contract for the additional 60 planes likely will be signed late this month or early May. Congressional approval is expected. The company is under contract to deliver 120 planes by 2004.

“We’re confident that the Congress will approve our offer this spring for an additional 60 C-17s,” said Mark DeVoss, a general manager of the Boeing program.

The Air Force considers the C-17 the pre-eminent cargo plane because it can travel 3,000 miles at a speed of 400 miles per hour with a 179,000-pound payload, coming to a halt on runways as short as 3,000 feet. So far, 83 planes have been delivered.

“We need the planes to fulfill our needs,” said Gloria Cales, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

The program has 700 suppliers and vendors, including nearly 100 in Los Angeles County. But Boeing has increased the number of contracts with foreign companies to about 20, up from the dozen attached to the project when production began in 1988.

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