Wichita plant may lose some Boeing tanker work

With a deal to provide the U.S. Air Force with new air-refueling tankers stalled, Boeing Co. will “most likely” decide to modify tankers it has already sold to its international customers overseas instead of Wichita.

Boeing will decide within two months whether its plant in Wichita or an Italian firm will perform the modifications on four 767 tankers ordered by Japan. That decision hinges on what happens with a U.S. tanker deal that has been stalled by a government investigation into how the company won the contract.

Modification work on the U.S. Air Force tankers, a deal valued at $23 billion, would still be done in Wichita when that contract is finalized, a Boeing spokesman said.

Economy

GDP posts strong growth

The economy started out the year solidly, growing at an annual rate of 4.2 percent in the first quarter in a performance that suggests the recovery has staying power.

The increase in gross domestic product from January to March was a slight improvement over the 4.1 percent rate during the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The first quarterly report for 2004 fell short of the 5 percent pace analysts were forecasting.

Auto industry

Last Oldsmobile parks inside Michigan museum

It’s the end of the line for the oldest automotive brand name in the United States. The last Oldsmobile rolled off the line Thursday at a Lansing, Mich., plant, which has produced the venerable vehicles for nearly a century.

The car, an Alero that will have signatures of plant employees inside the hood, will be displayed at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing for about four months, said Rebecca Harris, a spokeswoman for General Motors Corp.

Oldsmobile’s decline began in the mid-1980s, when buyers began moving from midsize cars that Oldsmobile was known for to sport utility vehicles.