After a decade of embarrassing missteps and disputes, the Pentagon handed a job-rich $35-billion contract to Chicago-based Boeing Co. to build a fleet of 179 aerial refueling tankers that carries the promise of work for an estimated 50,000 aerospace employees.
In an announcement that took industry experts by surprise, word came down late Thursday that Boeing had bested archrival Airbus and its parent company European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co., or EADS.
The fight between Boeing and EADS was bitter and hard fought. The lucrative tanker contract is believed to be the last new major Pentagon purchase for years to come.
"Boeing was the clear winner," said William J. Lynn, deputy secretary of Defense, in making the announcement. "We went through a process that evaluated war-fighting requirements, evaluated price, evaluated life-cycle costs. And the process yielded the result it did with Boeing winning."
The question on everybodys mind is will EADS appeal the decision.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Gravity always wins!
Really gutted for Airbus. Guess it was ever thus, after the noise Boeing made the last time.
Boeing only won because the Americans changed the goal posts so that the 767 won!
In the last contest when Airbus won the competition was for the best aeroplane. In that contest the A330 won.
In this latest contest which Boeing won the competition was for the second best aeroplane. Obviously the A330 had no chance so the 767 won!
Yes its bad for Airbus losing it but its not the end of the world. Its the American military that are going to suffer the most as they wont have the best aerial refueller on the market.
At last this is over (I hope) and the best proposal won .
I dont think for one moment that the choice of aircraft was biased in anyway as the Airbus proposal would have been built in the USA and would have been essentially an American rather than a French aircraft. anyway.
There would have been a strong pro Airbus lobby in Washington particularly from Alabama so the 'not built here argument' that I think you are alluding to is not valid.
Boeing won this contest based on sound technical, operational and economic criteria, and not least because of it's experience and organizational memory in refueling booms ( It fell off the Airbus aircraft)
A great day for common sense
I see what you are saying there about the 'best proposal won'! You dont say that the best aeroplane won.
Its interesting to note that Boeings bid came in at 1% lower than the airbus one, thus avoiding extra criteria which would have had to come into play if the bids were within 1% of each other! Presumably this meant that even on the new dodgy criteria that had been drawn up to allow Boeing to win, Airbus would have won if they were in the 1% zone! Funny that isn't it that Boeing managed to get to the 1% lower needed! Ummm i wonder if they knew exactly what the Airbus bid was going to be!
Dodgy, dodgy, dodgy!
Victor
It just proves that the competition was a success and proved the effectiveness of competition and the free market system.
An American private enterprise beat a European state funded conglomerate, thats all their is to it.
I
Victor: I see what you are saying there about the 'best proposal won'! You dont say that the best aeroplane won. Its interesting to note that Boeings bid came in at 1% lower than the airbus one, thus avoiding extra criteria which would have had to come into play if the bids were within 1% of each other! Presumably this meant that even on the new dodgy criteria that had been drawn up to allow Boeing to win, Airbus would have won if they were in the 1% zone! Funny that isn't it that Boeing managed to get to the 1% lower needed! Ummm i wonder if they knew exactly what the Airbus bid was going to be! Dodgy, dodgy, dodgy!
Saying 1% almost makes it sound like small change, like that annoying guy who beats me on ebay by 50 pence.... That 1% cheaper amounts to 300 million dollars!! My understanding is that the military tend to have a saying - "Always remember that your equipment was made by the lowest bidder".
My wings are like a shield of steel.
I think you are all right in your comments. The 1 % price difference, the 24% less fuel burn, sound technical, operational and economic criteria, the political interference behind the scenes, the conspiracy theories
Did the best plane win? We will only know if Boeing starts pulling a "787", with tanker delivery being 3 years late, We will only know when 100+ tankers has been flying for 2-3 years. We will only know when the US Defence Budget in 2023 has another expenditure to cover increased cost of maintenance on the tankers.
If that happens I will say that you were all wrong and that EADS should have won...
Being a neighbour to the US I would admit that I have a certain amount of bias (about 30%) towards Boeing, and having followed this for 10 years, I hope it will all go away soon and that the old tankers will retire giving their crews a chance to fly something new and better.
I feel this was a contest Airbus was never going to win, which was a real shame, as the Boeing subsidised bid, (Nasa and other Defense Contracts) was chosen, we are all well aware, how patriotic the Americans are, they will buy anything that has a Stars and Stripes on it, even if most of the componants are made in europe, Asia, and every other part of the world. but assembled in the good old US of A, I hopethe Airbusteam learn from this with other Aircraft they think the Americans might be interested in ie A400M, last comment, Americans don't like losing, at anything, if they come second they think they've lost, they will try any dirty trick in the book to win, ie wickileaks. I just cannot believe a order for aircraft can be changed by a visit from the president, it beggers belief.
I think the right plane won this competition. If the USAF had really wanted a large tanker Boeing could have submitted a 777 tanker. Both tankers would have done the job but there is no way that an airplane assembled from parts made in Europe would have employed as many Americans. Europe made the same decisions when it came to building the A400m and it's engines and the Meteor program as well.
The award for the A330 tanker was properly overturned not by the President but by the General Accounting Office(GAO). The tender from the USAF didn't specify any reward for exceeding the specifications and in fact was weighted toward lower costs. When the USAF made a judgement based on factors not included in the tender they changed the game and were ultimately called on it. If the USAF wanted the biggest most capable tanker Boeing would have submitted a bid based on the much larger 777 instead of the 767. Ultimately, individual cost is important since this contract will ultimately cover the purchase of several hundred aircraft.
With regard to subsidies, EADS/Airbus easily takes the cake. Due to the nature and terms of the launch aid used to develop EVERY Airbus aircraft, Airbus only has to repay those loans if the aircraft developed is successful.
All countries are patriotic and favor their homegrown industries. Europe has done the same thing with many of their acquisitions including the A400M and it's engines, the Meteor AAM, Tiger helicopter, the Galileo GPS system. All of these projects had/have US competitors which could have met/exceeded the requirements at a lower and known cost.
This decision to award Boeing the cotract has nothing to do with B767 against the A330, the decision it purely policitcal. The A330 is a far better aircraft than the B767, as we are all well aware the B767 was coming to the end of is life span, with less than 50 aircraft to produce, compaired to the A330 which is class leader, with orders still being placed and variants being developed, ie the freighter version, so I'm sorry this decision made by the USAF more likely in the halls of of congress
Saying the decision was political over and over doesn't make it so. The criteria for the contract was based on 372 mandatory requirements which both aircraft met. In that case the deciding factor was price and the Boeing bid was lower by more than 1%, ergo they won the contract.
As a passenger aircraft the A330 is probably a better aircraft given it was developed 12 years after the B767. A military tanker/cargo aircraft is a different animal entirely and the USAF has made clear that part of their priority is having a large number of tankers(>700 KC135 were produced) to be deployed worldwide. The larger aircraft might make sense on specific missions but just like airlines not all military missions involve a fully loaded plane over a maximum distance. An airline might love their A330s but if a route only flies at 50% occupancy they'll soon switch to a smaller aircraft to save money.
If Colin Firth thinks he's got a chance of winning an Oscar, he can forget it, If the tanker award is anything to go by.