Boeing lands three sizable aircraft orders amidst DOJ settlements

There’s been a little bit of good news with Boeing getting a few fairly sizable orders of late. Or at least it feels like a sizable order these days, given the way things have been going over the last couple of years.

Aerospace reporter Andrew McIntosh from the Puget Sound Business Journal joined KIRO Nights to discuss.

“Three separate orders that Boeing announced this week, including one for four of the final 747 jumbo freighter cargo planes that are made up in Everett, those are going to go to Atlas Air Worldwide, which runs cargo services for all kinds of people, themselves as well. That will be the final four ‘queens of the sky’ that come out of Everett, and those will be delivered between now and next year,” he said.

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“The second one was a fresh, updated order for a dozen KC 46A aerial refueling tankers (used to refuel military planes),” he continued. “Those are the jets that are made on the old Boeing 767 airframe. … In the old days, you had guys lying on the belly looking out the glass window on the bottom of the jet and connecting the gas line to the incoming aircraft, and now they do that with the remote vision system.”

The third order involved eight aircraft ordered by DHL on another cargo company, an affiliate of Deutsche Post, the German post office. As Mike suggested, it all has to be good news for Boeing and CEO David Calhoun, who apparently just celebrated his first year on the job.

“That’s right,” McIntosh said. “He came in to clean up the mess left by his predecessors, with the MAX groundings and global groundings. … That same day Boeing paid another $25 million settlement to the U.S. Government to settle a Justice Department investigation into sort of false claims at case, which involved Boeing building for the government for brand new drone parts.”

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“It was sort of like the second settlement in a week that Boeing had made with the DOJ to get these problems off the table so they could move forward,” he added. “The last was the $200 million settlement paid to resolve the investigation into how some Boeing workers misled the FAA about the safety of the MAX before two airplanes crashed and killed 346 people. … So good news for Boeing, and good news for the workers who build the planes up in Everett.”

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