The Airbus-Boeing WTO dispute is plodding along. It's fine with me if the panels take their time. I'm not sure I'll ever be quite ready to digest the monstrous panel reports that are likely to come out of this dispute.
In the meantime, Airbus and Boeing continue to compete in the marketplace, with the WTO dispute playing an important background role. From The Economist:
... On February 13th the United States Air Force (USAF) will decide which of two contenders—Boeing or a consortium of Northrop Grumman and EADS—will supply an initial tranche of 179 aerial-refuelling tankers as it starts to replace its 530 elderly KC-135 aircraft.
...
Given the air force's earlier preference for the [Boeing] 767, it is tempting to dismiss the chances of the Northrop-EADS partnership, which is offering a tanker version of the Airbus A330. But the political pressure for a genuine competition has made it harder (though not impossible) for Boeing to play the patriotism card. As there are only two makers of commercial jets that can meet the USAF's requirements, there would have been no contest had EADS, the Franco-German aerospace company that owns Airbus, not been convinced that it was in with a chance. But with the contest reaching its final stages, the attempts by both sides to prove that theirs is the better plane for the job have become increasingly acrimonious.
...
Amid the fog of claim and counter-claim, there is little doubt that the KC-30 is the more capable aircraft. But whatever the air force decides, Congress will have the last word—and there its prospects look fairly bleak. More than 60% of the value of the KC-30 would be sourced in America, and EADS would also build commercial freighters on the KC-30 assembly line in Mobile, Alabama. But Boeing's proposal would provide more jobs for Americans.
The fact that Democrats are now calling the shots in both houses in Congress also plays to Boeing's advantage. Patty Murray, a senator from Washington, Boeing's home state, makes it clear she will use a simmering row between Airbus and Boeing at the World Trade Organisation to knock the KC-30 out of the sky. Says the flag-waving Mrs Murray: “American taxpayers should not reward a company that has spent decades hurting American workers, and we should not turn a critical military contract over to a foreign company that is unfairly supported and subsidised by foreign powers.”
If Boeing wins the contract, it would not be too surprising if the EU adds a new item to its WTO complaint.
