Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

by Peter Robison

Boeing’s internal deliberations were revealed in the politically charged legal fight that followed. Albaugh had told the board that the move to South Carolina brought both extra costs and additional risk. They’d have to spend $1.5 billion, train inexperienced workers, and accept lower earnings on the first Dreamliners built there. But Project Gemini, as it was called, would undercut the union’s leverage and gain “important political support from a key state.” Boeing got more than $800 million in new tax breaks from South Carolina, where Republican Nikki Haley, elected governor in 2010, frequently declared that she wore high heels to kick unions out. Workers would make fourteen dollars an hour there compared to twenty-eight dollars in the Seattle area.