By William Pack - Express-News
The lumbering gray aircraft that landed Thursday at Boeing Co.s aviation center in San Antonio looked no different from others that had landed there before but it carries the promise of more jobs and increasing plant prosperity officials said.
The first KC-135 Stratotanker arrived at the San Antonio facility under a renewed contract to provide regular maintenance to the aging fleet of U.S. Air Force aerial refueling tankers.
Boeing officials said the Air Force has advised them that tanker maintenance duties no longer will be split between Boeing and an Alabama company.
That means said Michael W. Wright Boeings director for the KC-135 program that San Antonio will get twice as many planes to maintain in the coming years and will add workers.
We had a big celebration" Wright said about the Air Forces recently announced decision. There have been lots of stops and starts in the program. Now were spinning up and we know were going to stay up."
The local Boeing center will need about 90 additional workers between now and August to handle the influx of tankers but Wright said some of those employees may be shifted from other Boeing units. He could not say how many new workers would be hired.
The decision is expected to mean 24 KC-135s a year will be moved to San Antonio for upgrades up from the 12 that are being inspected and repaired now.
Our rate will double starting with this plane" Wright said.
The Air Force has been splitting up the maintenance work between Boeing and Alabama Aircraft Industries Inc. since the Alabama company sued to overturn Boeings second consecutive selection as the aircrafts maintenance contactor in 2007.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims upheld Alabama Aircrafts objections to the bidding process on the maintenance contract in 2008 but a U.S. appeals court reversed that decision last year and lifted an injunction that had kept the Boeing contract from being finalized.
