Northrop tanker deal to add local jobs
While Boeing Co. said Monday it will formally protest a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract it lost, one of two companies that won it, Northrop Grummun Corp., said its facility in Rolling Meadows stands to benefit.
"This will mean continued growth in this area," said Jack Pledger, director of Northrop's infrared counter measures group in Rolling Meadows. "This tanker contract has a defensive system on it that equates directly to work in the Chicago area."
Northrop won the contract along with European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., or EADS, to replace 179 air-to-air refueling tankers. The award is the first of three big Air Force contracts to replace its entire fleet of nearly 600 tankers over the next 30 years. Boeing, based in Chicago, said it will file its protest today with the Government Accountability Office.
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With the contract, Northrop's Rolling Meadows operation expects to hire 400 people this year at the 2,700-worker facility. The 1 million-square-foot facility makes sensors that can detect an approaching missile and, via an infrared camera, signal the missile to turn away from an airplane. Ranging in price from $1.5 million to $3.5 million, such systems have been used on nine FedEx airplanes and 400 military airplanes.
Northrop Grumman estimates the Air Force's tanker contract will create and sustain more than 4,300 jobs throughout Illinois. And the company contends the Air Force contract will generate economic activity in Illinois approaching $2 billion annually.
Northrop, using a different forecasting method, said Monday its handling of the tanker work would create about 48,000 direct and indirect jobs in the U.S. That is almost double the 25,000 jobs it initially projected would be created.
The awarding of the first phase of the tanker contract to Northrop and EADS last month has become a political issue as Boeing's supporters in Congress complain the decision will mean the loss of U.S. jobs.
Northrop's revised estimate, using the most recent data from suppliers and applying the U.S. Labor Department's formula for projecting aerospace jobs, exceeds the 44,000 jobs which supporters of Boeing claim would be supported if Boeing carried out the contract.
On Monday, Los Angeles-based Northrop said the assembly and militarization of the tankers would create 1,500 jobs in the U.S. EADS has said assembly work in Mobile, Ala., would create 1,300 jobs.
According to Northrop, its handling of the work will create 14,000 direct jobs and 34,000 indirect jobs in the U.S.
Major suppliers to the Northrop/EADS team include General Electric Co., Honeywell International Inc., AAR Cargo Systems, Sargent Fletcher and Knight Aerospace.