[citation][nom]rosen380[/nom]From what I can tell online, there are about 10000 commercial flights in the air, world wide, at any given time. If there is one plane on the ground boarding, refueling, etc for every one in the air, then we're talking 20000. That a couple percent of that number are scheduled to be built over an unspecified amount of time, doesn't seem too out of line. If an average plane is in service for 10 years before being retired, then to have 20k planes flightworthy, they need to be producing about 2k a year.[/citation]
That would equate to about $140,000 in 10 years?
Relatively speaking that is chump-change to both Microsoft and Boeing, it would probably cost that much for Boeing to have a lawyer walk in the front door.
Much easier to make a simle phone call to say "we are cutting a cheque for $140,000, m'kay?" and everyone walks away happy.