Boeing has won the coveted US Air Force tanker contract (here and here). That will be boon to the local economy, with estimating 11K direct and indirect locally generated jobs due to the tanker contract. Another 39K jobs are expected nation-wide as several Boeing facilities will build pieces of the aircraft.
This has been a very long process to get this contract awarded. The current 707 model was first developed in the 1950’s and has been showing its age for quite sometime. The USAF also has a DC-10 tanker variant with a larger capacity and range. It too is quite old so the Air Force needed to replace the current tanker program.
There were also some shady dealings in the original contract award, which some folks did a little jail time. So it was back to the drawing board and this time Airbus got involved. But the Boeing aircraft was a bit more fuel efficient so long term cost were lower than with the Airbus.
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