Boeing has just come out of its debriefing (7 March) with the US Air Force and issued this statement :
“We spent several hours with Air Force leaders, listening and probing, all in an effort to better understand the reasoning behind their decisions,” said Mark McGraw, Boeing vice president and program manager of the KC-767 tanker. “While we are grateful for the timely debriefing, we left the room with significant concerns about the process in several areas, including program requirements related to capabilities, cost and risk; evaluation of the bids and the ultimate decision.
“What is clear now is that reports claiming that the Airbus offering won by a wide margin could not be more inaccurate,” said McGraw.
Boeing officials said that they will take the next few days to evaluate the data presented and will give serious consideration to filing a protest.
“Our plan now is to work through the weekend to come to a decision on our course of action early next week,” said McGraw. “It will be a very rigorous and deliberative process to ensure we’re balancing the needs of the warfighter with our desire to be treated fairly. For decades Boeing has been recognized as a defense company that never takes lightly protests of our customers’ decisions.”
Will I be proved wrong?
Comments (2)
You may still be proved right. The "balancing the needs of the warfighter" language gives Boeing a spin-savvy, yet publicly plausible excuse for not dragging out this selection/acquisition. Of course, they could also let Congress do their dirty work by de-funding this round of KC-X in favor something even more "urgent" - such as more F-22s?
Posted by Adam K. | March 10, 2008 5:13 PM
Posted on March 10, 2008 17:13
Or Congress could try to force a split buy...
Posted by The Woracle | March 10, 2008 6:17 PM
Posted on March 10, 2008 18:17