Boeing takes $100 billion in orders from Gulf

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By AYA BATRAWY

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - U.S.-based Boeing Co. (BA) dominated on the first day of the Dubai Airshow, netting $100 billion in orders at an event that showcased the spending power and aggressive expansion efforts of the Middle East's Gulf Arab carriers.

The 342 orders represented more than twice the value of those seen by European rival Airbus, who said it took 142 orders worth some $40 billion.

The massive commitments came from just four carriers in the tiny nations of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are in a race to create more jobs for their own citizens and diversify their oil-dependent economies.

"In recent years, much of the action in global aviation has shifted to the Middle East because countries like the U.A.E. and Qatar have tapped into our geographical advantage to build a new air transport connection for the world," Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of Emirates and the smaller flydubai, told reporters.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131117/DAA4G2JO1.html

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Emirati officials greet each other in front of an Emirates Airbus A380 on display during the opening day of the Dubai Airshow in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday Nov. 17, 2013. The Dubai Airshow is seen as an increasingly important barometer on the state of the industry and the rising roles of the big-spending Gulf carriers Etihad, Qatar Airways and Emirates as they compete for routes and critical stopover traffic between Asia and Europe and the Americas. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

[PSPS]

1. Yet they claim they have to break the union and rob billions from WA taxpayers to "be competitive."

A resounding no from Machinists

Boeing Machinists resoundingly rejected a deal that would have cut benefits but assured that production of the 777X would take place here.

By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

Ignoring warnings from Boeing and pleas from political leaders, members of the Machinists union Wednesday voted 2-to-1 to reject a contract offer that would have ensured the company builds the new 777X jet in Washington state.

Machinists threw out the proposed eight-year contract extension, unveiled barely a week earlier, because it was laced with cuts to benefits. Many members said they refused to be forced into a hasty and radical decision under a management threat that they would lose future work.

Blowing away the neutral public stance of International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 751 President Tom Wroblewski over the past week, his members delivered a resounding slap to Boeing.

The rest: http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2022253577_boeingmachinistvotexml.html


Legislature approves tax breaks to secure Boeing 777X

The Legislature on Saturday approved aerospace-training programs and billions in tax incentives to help secure Boeing’s 777X jet. The union vote is next.

By Andrew Garber
Seattle Times Olympia bureau

OLYMPIA — Now the state waits.

With unusual speed, the Legislature on Saturday boosted aerospace-training programs and approved $8.7 billion in tax breaks to try to secure Boeing’s 777X jet.

But that meets only half of Boeing’s requirements to keep production of the aircraft in Washington state. The company also wants the Machinists union to accept a new eight-year contract with big cuts in future pension and health-care benefits.

The rest: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022229051_boeinglegislaturexml.html


Boeing Machinists: How dare thee?

By Ron Judd
Seattle Times staff columnist

You Machinists have a lot of nerve.

Turning your back on that offer that thousands of Deep South welfare kings and queens would literally kill for. What in the name of Samuel Gompers is up with that?

Do you not see how your antiquated notions of “fair share” of massive profits threatens the indirect Boeing economy upon which we all rely? Surely your realize that every one of your jobs creates seven more for country-club economists who exist solely to remind the world of the value of those seven other jobs. Not to mention another 100 or so posts for lightly educated Twittereporters prone to making inept, Chicken Little comparisons between Puget Sound and Detroit.

All of us craning our necks skyward in this trickle-down barista economy are depending on you folks, and all you can think about is yourselves and the benefits to which you somehow feel “entitled” simply because you earned them through decades of sacrifice and hard bargaining? It makes a person wonder about your upbringing.

The rest at: http://seattletimes.com/html/ronjudd/2022269224_juddwrap17xml.html

[tavalon]

5. Good job my fellow unionists

It will probably still end up here, but without you having to have destroyed your union in the process. Solidarity.

[Populist_Prole]

7. Spot-On post

Boeing is the new Wal-Mart.

[mn9driver]

2. The middle eastern airlines are also getting ready to take over most international routes.

They have more than enough money to buy all the politicians they need. I am watching this happen in Washington DC right now. And the Administration is very likely to go along with it.

[bhikkhu]

3. Who should service international air routes?

I'd need something more than "they have money" or "they're middle eastern" to object to it.

[tavalon]

4. Maybe because monopolies often go badly for the proles

I'm giving the poster the benefit of the doubt that it isn't about their MEness.

[mn9driver]

6. When flying to and from a particular country to another country

Traditionally, airlines based in those two countries and employing crews and ground support that live and work in those countries is the way it has been done.

What Emirates and other deep pocket ME airlines are trying to do is fly from, say, New York or Los Angeles or Chicago etc. to London, Paris, Tokyo etc. In return, the airlines of the destination and departure countries can fly from Dubai to...somewhere, if they think they can make money and have permission from the destination country.

Unlimited access to the US, EU and Pacific Rim in exchange for unlimited access to Dubai. This is how the US merchant marine industry was destroyed. There are many thousands of good union jobs at stake, and there are politicians in Washington anxious to give them away.

My post was about US, mostly union jobs, including mine. Nothing else.

[Blue_Tires]

8. We should all be so lucky...

The ME and (a few Asian) carriers have the best reputations for quality, comfort and service around, even for the Y-class peons...

I'm told they are what our airlines in the U.S. used to be a couple generations ago in the golden era...