EADS North America won’t protest Air Force tanker award to Boeing

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | 4 March 2011

[Yo-Yo]

EADS North America will not protest the U.S. Air Force’s award of its aerial refueling tanker contract to rival Boeing, company executives said Friday.

“After meeting with the Air Force and the Department of Defense and evaluating the information they provided to us … EADS North America has decided not to protest the KC-X tanker award,” EADS North America Chairman Ralph Crosby Jr. said Friday. “The outcome was decided by price, and Boeing’s offer was at a lower price than ours.”

He also suggested it might be hard for Boeing to deliver tankers on the Air Force’s timetable and make a profit on the contract.

The Air Force chose Boeing’s 767-based NewGen Tanker (now called KC-46A) Feb. 24, calling it “a clear winner” over EADS North America’s larger Airbus A330-based KC-45 tanker. The tanker criteria were set up to choose the cheaper offer, assuming both met 372 mandatory requirements, if it was more than 1 percent cheaper, after adjusting for fuel costs, required airbase modifications and a battlefield assessment.

EADS’ advantage in the battlefield assessment was about equal to Boeing’s edge in the other two adjustments, Crosby said. “So, essentially, what determined the outcome here was one simple thing: It was the price.”

And Boeing’s total evaluated price was $20.6 billion, $2 billion less than EADS North America’s, Crosby said. Boeing’s offer, he said, “is much lower than we would have gone” and about $16 billion lower than Boeing’s first tanker price in this long-running saga.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

And if you'll recall, Boeing was punished to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for subsequent rocket launches lost to Lockheed (and they should've been), the entire corporate structure was purged (and they should've been), and people went to jail (which they deserved). It's not like everybody walked with payraises and promotions. Since then, Boeing has done a lot to turn around a deplorable corporate attitude and company that was quickly running itself into being non-competitive and bankrupt.

What has EADS to improve their company? The French govt. is keeping them afloat, that's the very definition of non-accountability.

In case you forgot, and in spite of the glowing press coverage, the A380 has been a disaster from the beginning and is just a showboat that is not showing to be a commercial success, a la Concorde. Do you really want them building our premier tanker for the next 60 years?

[Always Independent]

Hey, I’m not defending EADS at all.