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7E7 Watch
7E7 chief praises state progress

By Dominic Gates;
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

	Mike Bair
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"We have established essentially a scoring system for how all the (site-selection factors) stack up," Bair said in a teleconference with reporters. "It is very detailed. There are hundreds of things we are looking at."

Bair wouldn't comment on how Washington currently ranks in that scoring system or identify which factors weigh most heavily for any site's score.

"All the sites are different," said Bair. "They each have different strengths and weaknesses."

On Oct. 8, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Alan Mulally caused dismay locally when, before business and community leaders in Seattle, he disparaged the state's business climate and transportation woes.

But Bair dispensed only accolades yesterday.

"(Washington has) made tremendous progress," Bair said. "If you look at what the state has accomplished so far, not just for us but for business in general, they're on the right track."

His view hasn't been significantly dented by last week's state Supreme Court ruling upholding the car-tab initiative, which threatens funding for transportation improvements.

"You can't expect everything to turn out the way you want," Bair said of that development.

Bair chose to dwell instead upon political progress toward the company's agenda.

"When we look at what Gov. Locke and the rest of government has done, we see a clear change," Bair said. "We are starting to see, if nothing else, a real change in attitude."

Saying that there was no "laundry list of things we need to have addressed" to close the deal for Washington state, Bair declared that the critical selection of a final-assembly site was still on schedule.

An announcement of the final decision is expected soon after Boeing's board meets Dec. 15.

But Bair added, in passing, that, because of the time it would take to do permitting and construction at a brand-new site, "it could spill into next year if we end up somewhere we have to build a new facility."

What's unclear is the impact of Boeing's recent decision to transport completed airplane sections via air from suppliers to the final-assembly plant.

Bair said that decision won't change the need for access to a deep-water port.

"We need seaport availability, if for nothing else for backup," Bair said.

However, Bair, said, "the air-logistics solution probably makes it less likely" suppliers would need satellite factories close to the final-assembly plant.

With major airplane sections arriving by air virtually complete, the implication was that whatever region wins the site competition could get the estimated 1,200 final-assembly jobs but relatively few supporting jobs from suppliers.

If so, the economic impact would be reduced.

Bair was clear that suppliers themselves would decide how they want to put parts together. At least two suppliers are thinking in terms of doing additional work near the final-assembly site.

In an interview cited in this week's Aviation Week, an industry magazine, Giorgio Zappa, chairman of Alenia of Italy, said the company was interested in setting up a satellite 7E7 plant in a joint venture with another major 7E7 supplier, Vought of Texas.

According to people familiar with the proposed division of parts, these two suppliers have been tentatively assigned the 7E7's rear fuselage and the horizontal stabilizer of the tail.

Zappa's comments suggest the two are considering the possibility of joining respective parts together somewhere close to final assembly before delivery to Boeing.

This would suit Boeing's objective of minimizing final-assembly work.

And such an arrangement would give the two suppliers a bigger slice of the pie: about 20 percent of the airframe work, Zappa estimated.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

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