Tanker News 2 July

The following tanker related items caught our eye:

Alabama Register: Mobile's Brookley Airfield Boss Fired
Key Passage:

[Marc] Pelham had the delicate task of executing the master plan for Brookley adopted by the board. It called for relocating or moving out some tenants who didn't fit the vision for the complex. The former Air Force base has 6 million square feet of industrial space, a significant share of all such space in southwest Alabama.

..."My reaction would be one of amazement and disbelief," said [Winston] Wells, whose company's 40-year tenure at Brookley is among the longest. "I thought Marc was the most personable person they'd had in that office for a while."

Marc was a visitor to, but hardly a fan of, Tanker War Blog. He could be counted on to rise in support of Mobile or offer insight as he did in the comments section to this post. This is new and a very strange twist to the KC-30 team's efforts in Mobile which saw the June 28th ground breaking ceremony for its new assembly plant cancelled due to the GAO decision.

CNBC: KC-30 Team Launches New PR Campaign
Key Passage:

Now, buy your popcorn for “The Return of the Euros.” After a couple of weeks of not talking, Northrop Grumman has reemerged to tout its Airbus-based tanker entry with the new, edgy ads, and with a new press release. The release announces that the KC-45's refueling boom has completed its 100th flight.

We think TAnchorman has made better ads without having to pay someone on Madison Avenue hundreds of thousands of dollars. (This is a spoof of a KC-30 ad.) The new KC-30 PR campaign though definitely signals they are going back on the attack, and we sense an escalation in the hostilities.

NYTimes: Another EADS Executive Taken Into Custody

Ho-hum, another day and another EADS executive being detained by the French authorities for insider trading. This time it is former Airbus president Gustav Humbert. It seems as it is only a matter of time until Ralph Crosby, CEO of EADS North America has his number called.