By: tenthije - 26th December 2005 at 19:24
There was zero commercial interest shown by the airlines.
The plane is too optimised to military operations. The high wing makes maintenance more difficult. Its ability for landings on rough terrains makes the plane too heavy. The plane is horribly expensive to buy when compared to its Russian counter part the IL-76 or to converted 747s and MD11s.
On top of that was a demand that the USAF could claim the BC-17s in case they needed more capacity (of course with some compensation to the airlines). This made it not practical for business as an airline has to be sure it has aircraft to run operations.
Moreover, most cargo carriers use second hand planes anyway since they are dirt cheap to buy. So buying a new plane, especially one that does not offer any real advantages over il-76s etc, is just not a viable idea.
The USAF desperately needs more cargo planes, so hopefully congress will decide to order a new batch. If they do not Boeing will be forced to close the line in the near future are the backlog of orders is getting very small.
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December 26, 2005 at 6:45 pm