Friday, May 23, 2003 | 11:43 a.m.
CHICAGO -- Boeing Co., the world's largest planemaker, and the Pentagon reached an agreement for the Air Force to pay as much as $17 billion to lease 100 airplanes to be used as refueling tankers, Congressman Norm Dicks said.
At the end of the six-year lease, the Air Force will buy the planes for $4 billion, said Dicks, a Democrat from Washington state who is on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and was briefed by Pentagon officials.
Boeing cut the price of each 767 transport jet by 13 percent to $131 million, ending talks that dragged on for 18 months amid disagreements over cost. The stress of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as patrols over the U.S., accelerated the need to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of KC-135 tankers. Some politicians, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, had said the lease would be more costly than refurbishing aircraft.
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