Further, the decision to pursue the RFP is made at the division level, NOT the corporate level.
Nice theory - but in the case of the tanker it was NOT that way. Way back in 2000-2001 as the initial tanker fiasco was aborning, it was corporate that pulled the strings and responsible for the resulting major FUBAR despite and over the objections of the ' commercial division ; It went like this - BA commercial wasx to build the airframe- and deliver it ( green ) to military division ( on paper ) Miitary would fly it to wichita/st louis where it would be partially disassembled and refit with mil standard stuff, ad naseaum.
Thru a set of circumstances not really pertinent here in this thread- I was at the time in a unique position to be an ' observer ' and party to a few discussions as to how the initial 767 tanker lease offer really came to be- and how it was screwed up- not by commercial but by the MDC whiz kids of which one spent time in Club fed
When the 737navy - P8 came along- it was renton commercial who ran the whole show.
But when the tanker again came on the scene- the st louis turkeys essentially froze out the commercial troops who had been building767s for a few decades - and started over again.
And in all cases, its the program accounting game used by Boeing which allows' losing' programs to eventually recover via volume/quantity bean counting- eg 7 late 7 is the current poster child.
Perhaps the meme should be - "we lose money on the first (xx) or each one but will make it up by volume."
