Boeing has several decisions to make during 2018. One is whether to build or not to build a New Medium Aircraft often referred as the 797. The airplane is a shoe horn fit between the 737 Max 10 and the 787-8. Its counter part, Airbus, indicates making add-on's to its own A321 NEO as a quick and dirty response for anything market gap filing. It would quickly stretch and bend the A321 for more fuel and passenger space where Boeing would make a clean sheet design different from its own largest single aisle example from the 737 Max 10 family of aircraft.
The mid sized cities in America are now in the competition of wooing Boeing into its zip code for an airplane making adventure. The Northwest and Washington State has a great advantage over other towns across North America. Spokane, WA is an active suitor for the 797 program if announced. Moses Lake could fill its Eastern Wa hole with a factory no one could even notice from the freeway drive-by. The one city within the five hundred mile circle from Seattle is Boise, ID and it has a surprising chance.
Boise is a clean sheet location having infrastructure available for building the Boeing 797. A middle American town having great core unmatched by big city taxes, congestion and life style penalties. It the open space version of a Seattle park system. The different is millions of acres of mountains, deserts and canyons for which Seattle could not have even if Mt Rainier blew its top.
Boise State University (BSU) is not one of those sandstone eastern schools citing two hundred years of tradition as its main talking point but has become a metro school where the world market changes and new building go up for teaching students how to lead those changes. Since the IT world has turned the world upside down Many IT based companies have come to Boise. Micron Technology, Hewlett Packard and recently intuit (T-Sheets). BSU has partnered with those businesses as it is in the business of making trained graduates with western work ethics who end up making these anchor companies succeed. The work force in Boise is more than competent for any Boeing venture. operation.
The city area is larger than Spokane at 650,000 people and has open space surrounding the metropolitan area in abundance. One area directly south of the airport is an open space for more air traffic expansion. The outlying southern Owyhee region would rival any of Nevada's testing secret areas. Idaho doesn't have lake beds like Nevada but it does have privacy for hundreds of miles and immediate connections with military operation at Mountain Home AFB and Gowan Field ANG in Boise. Boise has a consistent and convenient juxtaposition with its other tests locations. Moses Lake, and Glendive MT. The railroad comes right to the Airport or any other industrial location in the greater treasure valley as a spur line built out by only a few miles, Union Pacific. Boise is a technology breeding ground and is rapidly gaining prominence as a business leader in the region.
A Boeing project like the 797 would be a low cost risk with a guaranteed workforce at hand with any union affiliations. The land is cheap and taxes are on the low side as compared with every other area in the US. A move to Boise would surprise the aviation world as Boeing would catch another Dream with 797 project. The location is ideal from its centrally located position on the Northwest map.
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