boeing

'Been building this thing forever': Trump furious over upgraded Air Force One delays

During his first term, President Donald Trump ordered significant upgrades to Air Force One. But delays in construction mean that the new jets may not be ready until whoever is elected 48th president of the United States enters the White House.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump has been haranguing Boeing — the aerospace company that won the $4.3 billion contract — about the delays, and he has since tasked Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk with expediting completion of the two new 747 jets completed before his second term ends. Trump brought up the delayed Air Force One upgrades during a recent interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity (alongside Musk).

“They’ve been building this thing forever," Trump said. "I don’t know what’s going on.”

According to the Times, the two current presidential jets have been in operation for more than three decades and frequently need servicing. Last weekend, Trump toured a jet previously owned by the Qatari royal family, and has floated the idea of retrofitting it to be an interim replacement for Air Force One. He has also reportedly considered relaxing security clearance restrictions for the plane's builders in order to speed up construction.

Boeing has reportedly already recorded losses in excess of $2 billion on the Air Force One contract, and is now three years behind schedule. The jets were initially ordered in 2018, but following the delays the new jets may not be ready until 2029, when the next president is sworn in.

“It is ridiculous the delivery of a new Air Force One airplane has been delayed for such a long time," White House communications director Steven Cheung said. "President Trump is working on identifying ways to speed up the delivery of a new plane, which has been needed for a while.”

The new upgrades reportedly include boardrooms, meeting rooms, military avionics and self-defense systems. Some of the construction delays may be due to a seven-week strike by Boeing workers last year after wage negotiations hit a standstill. Machinists agreed to come back to work after securing a new contract guaranteeing a 38% wage increase staggered over the next four years.

Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).

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Trump angrily confronted Boeing CEO upon learning Air Force One updates delayed until 2029

During his first administration, then-President Donald Trump ordered a slew of updates to Air Force One. But aircraft manufacturer Boeing says the updates may not not be ready until his eventual successor is in the White House.

The Daily Beast reported Friday that Boeing's delayed delivery schedule has frustrated the president-elect so much that he's reportedly been berating both Boeing's CEO and his own staff. The Beast's Leigh Kimmins wrote that Trump had made revamping Air Force One his "pet project," and was supposedly livid when hearing he wouldn't personally get to use the new plane.

According to Kimmins, Trump gave a $3.9 billion contract to Boeing for two new, 747-8 jets with a new paint job and fully updated interior, with the original timeline for delivery happening between 2026 and 2027. But now, Boeing has said the updated presidential jet won't be ready until 2029, after his second term has ended.

“We take pride in this work. Our focus is on delivering two exceptional Air Force One airplanes for the country,” the company stated.

That apparently wasn't good enough for Trump, who the Beast reports "demanded answers" from Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg in a November phone call. The incoming president is also reported to have "badgered his own staff for updates" on whether the planes would be ready before the end of his presidency.

The Telegraph reported that the jets were meant to be an "extension of the Oval Office" once the updates are complete. They will be fitted with boardrooms, meetings rooms, military avionics and self-defense systems. An unnamed Air Force spokesperson told the Beast that an update on the delivery timeline is expected sometime in the spring of 2025.

Boeing's delay on the new generation of Air Force One may be due to a seven-week strike by the company's workers that ended in November. The Seattle-based company's operations were significantly hampered after 33,000 machinists went on strike over wage negotiations. The machinist union's members ultimately agreed to a contract that would increase their wages by 38% over the next four years.

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'Degradation in our thrusters': Ex-astronaut reveals what’s needed to bring stranded pilots home

Two astronauts have been stranded at the International Space Station (ISS) for weeks. Now, a former NASA astronaut is explaining what needs to be done to get them back on solid ground.

NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who rode the Boeing Starliner capsule to the ISS, almost didn't make it to the research outpost due to helium leaks and what they referred to as "degradation in our thrusters." Even though this was the Starliner's first manned space flight, unmanned launches and re-entries of the capsule had gone off without a hitch.

In a Wednesday interview with CNN host Boris Sanchez, Col. Terry Virts – a former NASA astronaut – explained what went wrong with Wilmore and Williams' trip to the ISS, and how they can get back to Earth safely. Virts joined the interview holding up a model Boeing Starliner. He explained that the astronauts are safe and can come home anytime, but that more research needs to be done in order to determine what caused the thruster failure so future missions won't be jeopardized.

"They have a lot of small RCS [Reaction Control System] jets there on this back part of the capsule, and that's used to orient and point the capsule in the right direction. They also have some large OMAC [Orbital Maneuvering and Attitude Control] engines that are used to actually de-orbit the capsule to get it back to Earth," Col. Virts explained. "So when the capsule undocks, it'll turn around backwards, fire the larger thrusters, the OMAC, thrusters and come back."

"The small thrusters, the RCS, failed during the docking," he continued. "And the problem is, when it comes back to Earth, the capsule with the crew on board is going to separate from the service module. The capsule will come back safely with the heat shield and a parachute, and the service module is going to burn up. So they won't have the thrusters to look at and analyze, they won't have the helium tanks that had some leaks to look at, so they need to keep it on the space station for as long as they need, to get the data they need, before the separation in the service module burns up."

According to Virts, Boeing needs the Starliner to fly a successful manned test flight to and from the ISS in order to get the craft certified by NASA. The craft's next expedition will be an operational flight with four astronauts rather than two, in which the four scientists on board will complete a normal rotation on the ISS.

"They really want that big giant certification stamp so that they can consider the vehicle operational, so I think they're taking as long as they need to make sure they can get that certification," Virts said. "If there was an emergency, we just heard in the press conference, the crew would jump in, close the hatch and come back to Earth. And I don't think there'll be any, no one expects any problems at all, but they do want that certification stamp and so it's a lot better to take a few extra weeks now than to have to fly an entire another test mission which Boeing and NASA definitely don't want."

The Starliner's woes are just the latest headache for Boeing, which has been reeling from numerous whistleblowers coming forward to speak out about the company's lackadaisical attitude for safety regulations. Aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien told CNN last month that the company's thirst for ever-increasing profits may have been what led to the breakdown of the Starliner.

Virts noted that one unexpected silver lining of the malfunction on Boeing's Starliner capsule is that Wilmore and Williams will be able to help other astronauts on the ISS. He explained that more hands are always needed to maintain the jointly operated outpost that the U.S. runs in conjunction with other countries.

The station astronauts are going to be happy to get some free labor," Virts said. "You can never have enough workers on the space station. So this is free free labor to knock off the honey-do list, which is always long on a space station."

Watch Virts' full segment on CNN below, or by clicking this link.

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Boeing push to 'maximize profits' may have stranded astronauts in space: aerospace analyst

On Wednesday, the Telegraph reported that two U.S.-based astronauts for the Starliner spacecraft have been stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for almost two weeks longer than planned.

Aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien discussed the implications for Boeing during an appearance on CNN, arguing that it is "reasonable" to ask if the aerospace giant's push to "maximize profits across the board has somehow manifested itself into cutting quarters in the space division" — and possibly caused the astronauts to be stranded in space.

The Telegraph's reporting came after Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun admitted he knows that the company retaliated against whistleblowers.

Calhoun testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Tuesday, addressing safety concerns about Boeing.

O'Brien told CNN's Jim Acosta, "There's like this stacked-up series of open questions, which has NASA and Boeing saying, 'You know, let's leave them up there a little bit longer until we figure this out.'"

The aerospace analyst warned that the crew on the Starliner spacecraft could be in "great jeopardy" if a mechanical failure occurs "on the way down."

O'Brien told Acosta, "This is a separate division of Boeing; the space people have their own operations separate from the commercial airliner business. But ultimately, the buck stops at the guy we saw in front of Congress the other day….. It's something we should take a long hard look at —have the woes of this troubled company extended beyond what is happening in Seattle?"

Watch the full video below or at this link.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Preza

Boeing aerospace analystwww.youtube.com

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'Critical malfunction' on Boeing jet leaves Anthony Blinken stranded at Davos

The mechanical problems seen lately in Boeing aircraft is apparently not limited to commercial airliners, as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was also recently sidelined due to problems with his Boeing jet.

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Blinken was "stranded" in Davos, Switzerland after the modified Boeing 737 jet transporting the US' top diplomat experienced a "critical malfunction." Mechanics noted an oxygen leak rendered the aircraft "unsafe to fly," forcing Blinken and his entourage to split up, with Blinken taking a smaller jet back to the US, and his team flying commercial.

This marks yet another high-profile safety incident for Boeing, which had several of its 737 Max 9 jets grounded by the FAA after a viral incident earlier this month. On January 5, an Alaska Airlines flight experienced a sudden blowout of a door plug while 16,000 feet in the air above Oregon, prompting several passengers to sue both Boeing and the airline.

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The Washington state-based aircraft manufacturing company has been in the spotlight in recent years for its jets' questionable safety. A total of 346 people were killed over the course of two Boeing jet crashes in 2018 and 2019, and another 2018 incident in which a woman was killed after being sucked out of the plane when an engine explosion shattered a window in mid-flight. According to Lever News, Boeing and its top supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, have lobbied Washington for years to loosen safety regulations in order to cut costs and boost profits.

Lever reported in January on a securities lawsuit in which former Spirit AeroSystems employees accused the company of "deliberately covering up systematic quality control problems, encouraging workers to undercount defects, and retaliating against those who raised safety concerns." While not as well known as Boeing, the aircraft parts supplier posted more than $5 billion in revenue in 2022, and calls itself "one of the world’s largest manufacturers of aerostructures for commercial airplanes."

Boeing, for its part, is one of the biggest lobbying clients in Washington, DC. According to data compiled by Open Secrets, the company has the 9th largest lobbying profile, spending nearly $11 million on lobbying Congress in the 2024 election cycle alone, with roughly an equal amount of money going toward both parties.

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The Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump: Stand by for Tweets Divorced from Reality and a Cabinet Full of Corporatists

All hail Augustus Trumpus! All hail the American Putin, whom none can criticize! All hail the Great All Knowing One, who reveals “realities” that are not there and finds “facts” that mere mortals cannot detect.

Once again, the amazing Donald has demonstrated his phantasmagoric power of perception, having a new outcome in November’s election that others haven’t seen. Trump has been greatly perturbed by the official results, which showed that while he won the Electoral College majority, he was not the people’s choice.

Instead, Hillary Clinton won the popular balloting by a margin of more than 2 million votes. Growing increasingly furious at this affront to his supernatural sense of self, the master of factual flexibility went on Twitter with an amazing revelation: “I won the popular vote,” decreed our incoming tweeter-in-chief!

Wow, how did he turn a 2 million-vote loss into a glorious victory? “I won,” he tweeted, “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

Wow again! Millions? You’d think such a massive conspiracy — with millions of illegal voters in line at thousands of precincts — would have been noticed by election officials, GOP poll watchers and the media. How did Trump find this truly incredible fact?

It seems he channeled it from the mysterious tweet-a-sphere, specifically from a Texas conspiracy hound who had earlier posted a tweet declaring: “We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens.” But this guy turns out to be part of a right-wing fringe group chasing nonexistent voter frauds — exactly none of those 3 million “illegal” votes have been verified. Stunned that Trump would cite his tweet as proof, he asked sheepishly: “Isn’t everything on Twitter fake?”

Get used to it: Fakery is reality for America’s next president. Unfortunately for us it is not just fakery that we will have to get used to, because President Trumpus happens to have a real knack for irony as well.

Trump, who campaigned as populist champion of the working class, promised that, by golly, he was going to take on Wall Street and the corporate elites. But the bitter irony for working class Americans is that they now see what he meant: He’s literally “taking on” the moneyed powers by taking them onboard his administration. For example, he’s brought in Wall Street billionaires to fill the three top economic policy positions in his Cabinet!

Then there’s Betsy DeVos, the billionaire heiress to the scandal-plagued Amway fortune. Her life’s work has been trying to defund and privatize the public schools that working-class and middle-class people count on and to eliminate the working-class and middle-class jobs of teachers and support staff. Her new job with Trump? Secretary of the Department of Education, where she’ll now use our public money to try killing off our public education system.

Add to the list Myron Ebell, the honcho of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a corporate front group funded by fossil fuel profiteers like Exxon and the Koch brothers. He relentlessly pushed to gut the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of this organization. Where’s he now? Heading Trump’s EPA transition team.

Also, more than half those making up the Donald’s Department of Defense transition team have been executives or lobbyists for such military contractors as Boeing Corp. Overall, according to watchdog group Public Citizen, three-fourths of Trump’s transition team members — who are organizing, staffing and shaping his new government— come from the corporate world. Not a single working-class populist has been allowed a seat at his power table.

As America’s working stiffs know, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. And now we know what Augustus Trumpus will be serving. Trump’s no populist, he’s a full-time corporatist.

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