SEATTLE - With multi-billion dollar deals and thousands of jobs on the line, it should come as a surprise to no one that foreign airplane deals involve governments and even their highest ranking officials. But now, in its continuous publication of once-secret U.S. State Department memos, Wikileaks pulls back the curtain on how some of those deals come together and how Boeing and Airbus involve their respective governments to try and tilt the tables in their favor.
Those memos involve the Saudi king's request to have his personal 747 equipped with the latest technology similar to Air Force One. Another, involving a possible Turkish deal, asks if a Turkish astronaut could go on a space flight.
According to the New York Times, the king got the technology for his plane. Boeing got a multi-billion dollar order for 777s and 787 Dreamliners. At this point, there's no Turkish astronaut, but there are 20 orders on Boeing's order books.
"Access to foreign markets means you got to play with the big boys. You've got to play with the kings and the emirs and the presidents and the prime Ministers," said Michel Merluzeau of Kirkland-based G2 Solutions. Merluzeau travels the world and is familiar with foreign military and civilian aircraft deals.
In another Wikileaked memo involving sales to Turkey, a U.S. diplomatic official says "The German Chancellor and the French President have raised the upcoming ... acquisitions, on Airbus' behalf."
But do these deals risk crossing the line, particularly in countries with different ethical climates? Boeing spokesman Tim Neale in Washington, D.C. said, "That's where it gets hard. The law is the law and company procedures are the company procedures, and we're going to follow them. Even if that means we need to walk away from a specific piece of business." Neale cited the company's extensive and stringent ethical guidelines.
One of the memos addresses how those Boeing ethics came to bear after Boeing executives raised an issue with the embassy about being pressured to "hire" a representative of the Turkish flag carrier. The cable said Boeing said no to the request, and the man was not hired.
One of these sales went very public back in 1994 and also involved Saudi Arabia. In a hotly contested competition between Boeing and Airbus, then-President Bill Clinton joined with the Saudi Ambassador to announce the deal in a White House press conference. Then the deal was split between Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. Airbus got nothing. Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged a few years later.
