LOCKHEED MARTIN WINS MAINTENANCE WORK:
A team that includes Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda yesterday won a 15-year, $10.2 billion contract to maintain aircraft engines for the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force chose the team, led by the Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, over a competing team of the nation's three largest aircraft engine makers -- Pratt & Whitney Corp., General Electric Co. and the Allison engine division of Rolls-Royce. The contract covers maintenance and repair work on engines for the F-16 and F-15 fighter jets, the C-130 and C-5 cargo planes and the P-3 naval reconnaissance plane. Lockheed Martin manufactures all but the F-15, which is made by Boeing Co., although the Bethesda defense company does not make the engines. The winning team of Tinker and Lockheed Martin will transfer some engine maintenance work from Kelly to Tinker, creating 1,500 jobs at the base. Kelly still will have other private engine work.
For Lockheed Martin, the contract is another in a series of privatization deals in which the giant aerospace company has been taking on work once performed by the government. Last year, it won a $6 billion contract to handle some of NASA's operations. Lockheed Martin already handles maintenance work on a variety of airplanes around the world, said James A. Blackwell Jr., head of the company's aircraft division. Blackwell said Tinker will receive the bulk of the $10 billion in revenue. "It's about $2.6 billion over 15 years" for Lockheed Martin, he said. (Washington Post) |
