Almost half a decade after it delivered its last new-build C-17, Boeing still receives enquiries about potentially reviving production of the strategic transport, a senior company official says.
Boeing in 2013 decided to end production due to a lack of orders, and completed output at its at Long Beach, California final assembly facility by building several “white tails” ahead of securing contracts from customers. The last example was transferred to the Indian air force in August 2019.
“There are a number of other customers who wish they had acquired it at the time,” Boeing’s vice-president and general manager services Torbjorn Sjogren said at the World Defense Show near Riyadh in Saudi Arabia on 5 February.
“The C-17 is a product that does come up quite often. If we still had a lukewarm production line there are a number of customers who have expressed interest,” he says.
“There are discussions periodically about could you restart the line, where would you restart the line, what would it cost. We go through those reviews, but restarting a production line that has been dormant for quite some time is extremely expensive,” Sjogren notes.
Additionally, he says: “to get new aircraft like that into the market is going to take some time”.
Sjogren notes that the mission readiness of the operational C-17 fleet “is amongst the highest in the world”, with Boeing supporting the type via a global performance-based logistics deal.
Three of the six Gulf Cooperation Council member nations fly the C-17: Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia also came “very close” to confirming an order prior to production ending, Sjogren says.
Meanwhile, Vince Logsdon, Boeing Defense Space & Security vice-president international business development, believes the company’s P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will be “the next C-17”, with the risk of potential customers missing out when production of the 737NG-based model comes to an end.
Saudi Arabia is studying a possible maritime patrol aircraft acquisition, with the P-8A among potential candidates.
Boeing currently holds orders to produce P-8As for export buyers including Canada and Germany, but Logsdon says: “We have to have the demand signals to continue to produce” legacy-model narrowbodies for adaptation to military use.
“As long as we have those demand signals and as long as we have customers who want that capability we will continue to produce those [aircraft],” he adds.
The company is additionally expecting to produce NG-based E-7A airborne early warning and control system aircraft for the US Air Force, NATO, and potentially additional customers. Other users of its aged 707-derived E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System platform are France and Saudi Arabia.
