Why didn’t they design and build something immediately functional that simply modernizes existing technology instead of using this effort as an expensive time delaying R&D program?
Airbus had a better, viable option that Boeing fought and prevailed over.
This is what happens again and again when the bean-counters take over from the engineers.
It has killed and seriously damaged hundreds of companies, yet the MBAs continue their miserly carnage-inducing ways.
Boeing is only the latest high profile victim of the MBA programs in woke universities.
Bingo! That’s exactly what the AF refueling pilots wanted!