According to a Pentagon audit, Boeing overcharged the Air Force on spare parts for a major cargo plane, including marking up the price of soap dispensers by 8,000%.
Boeing notoriously charges ridiculous amounts of money for everything they sell the Government. There was a thing going around a few years ago saying that the government pays them $50,000 per trash can for one of the planes they sell. That’s a decent salary in most places. For a trash can.
Boeing is contracted to make a plane for US Gov, Boeing is cheap af so they just modify a civilian production plane, during this time the trash can is relatively reasonably priced. They finish producing the civilian model, move to an updated model, and that trash can changes design. They no longer want this trash can cluttering their “just-in-time” lean mean supply chain machine, so they cut all their orders on them and retain what they have squirreled away. As the trash cans get depleted from the meager inventory, they never replenish, and the price raises in accordance to the scarcity, Boeing is free to set whatever price they want once it’s no longer a “commercial” item.
That particular trash can went from $300 to $52,000.
Boeing notoriously charges ridiculous amounts of money for everything they sell the Government. There was a thing going around a few years ago saying that the government pays them $50,000 per trash can for one of the planes they sell. That’s a decent salary in most places. For a trash can.
Boeing is contracted to make a plane for US Gov, Boeing is cheap af so they just modify a civilian production plane, during this time the trash can is relatively reasonably priced. They finish producing the civilian model, move to an updated model, and that trash can changes design. They no longer want this trash can cluttering their “just-in-time” lean mean supply chain machine, so they cut all their orders on them and retain what they have squirreled away. As the trash cans get depleted from the meager inventory, they never replenish, and the price raises in accordance to the scarcity, Boeing is free to set whatever price they want once it’s no longer a “commercial” item.
That particular trash can went from $300 to $52,000.