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Boeing overcharged the U.S. Air Force 8,000% above market for soap dispensers

(www.reuters.com)
152 points lr0 | 1 comments | 21 Nov 24 04:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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cjensen ◴[21 Nov 24 06:40 UTC] No.42201750[source]▶
The US has 222 C-17 Aircraft. A single C-17 costs over $300 million.

If you ask Boeing for soap dispenser parts for these, what should they cost? Boeing charged $149,072 for the dispensers. That's $671 per plane. Is that too much?

If you had to make these dispensers, make sure they conform to rules for aircraft parts and Air Force parts, provide formal responses to bids, etc., how much could you make them for?

It seems high to me. The article says 8000%, which is less than $10 per plane. So while it seems high, it's definitely not 8000% high.

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bagels ◴[21 Nov 24 07:03 UTC] No.42201842[source]▶
Can you imagine even being a one-man shop making 222 bespoke soap dispensers to some absurd spec AND jumping through all the documentation hoops that are required for only $150k? I wouldn't take that job. Sounds awful.
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1. jjallen ◴[21 Nov 24 07:52 UTC] No.42202065[source]▶
I think that isolating their relationship to a single transaction like this is disingenuous. Our government pays this company many billions per year. They likely or should have had extra of these laying around for replacements. It’s not unreasonable to expect them to charge a reasonable amount for everything.

But for some reason Boeing continually gets away with being Boeing for some reason.