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发帖数: 8422 | 1 肥水不流外人田-Boeing Wins Contract for Air Force Tankers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/business/25tanker.html?_r=1&h
Boeing Wins Contract to Build Air Force Tankers
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: February 24, 2011
In a surprise twist in a long-running saga, the Air Force on Thursday
awarded a $35 billion contract for aerial fueling tankers to Boeing rather
than to a European company that builds Airbus planes, according to
congressional aides and industry executives who were briefed on the decision
.
Boeing and its supporters in Congress had seemed in recent days to give up
hope of winning the contest, and the decision could settle a titanic
struggle between the world’s largest plane builders.
But even though Boeing had portrayed itself as the hometown favorite, the
choice could still touch off a fight in Congress. Boeing’s rival, the
European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, had contended that its plane
was bigger and better. And lawmakers from the Gulf Coast, which is still
recovering from Hurricane Katrina, were counting on EADS’s promise to build
an assembly plant in Alabama, which would have created thousands of jobs.
EADS had also lined up companies from other politically important states,
like Ohio, to supply parts, and lawmakers from those states could raise
questions about the decision as well.
Pentagon officials planned to provide more details about the contract and
their decision at a briefing late this afternoon.
The contract could be the largest awarded for many years as military budgets
tighten, and it could eventually reach $100 billion. The tankers are likely
flying gas stations, and they transfer fuel in mid-flight to fighters,
bombers and cargo planes.
Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va.,
said the victory could help Boeing in its battle with Airbus in the much
larger market for passenger jets and freighters.
If EADS had won the tanker contract, it planned to eventually assemble
commercial freighter planes at the Mobile plant, giving it a manufacturing
beachhead that could help it expand other sales in the United States.
And with sharp budget cuts in Europe, “EADS also faces a home defense
market that is imploding like black hole,” Mr. Aboulafia said. “So it was
imperative that they get this contract.”
The award also could mark the end of a long and often embarrassing effort by
the Air Force to replace its aging tankers, which date back to the
Eisenhower and Kennedy years.
The bidding represented the service’s third attempt to obtain new tankers
since 2001. The first effort collapsed after Senator John McCain, the
Republican from Arizona, blew the whistle on corruption involving an
airplane-leasing proposal with Boeing.
Northrop Grumman and EADS then won in 2008, only to have government auditors
block the award after Boeing protested that the evaluation had been too
subjective.
Northrop dropped out last year, prompting the Pentagon to extend the bid
deadline to give EADS more time out of concern that Boeing could charge a
higher price if it were the only bidder.
Boeing had complained bitterly that EADS, which bid through its North
American subsidiary, could rely on subsidies from European governments to
undercut Boeing’s price or to absorb losses if it won the contract with a
low-ball bid.
And lawmakers from Washington State and Kansas, where Boeing assembles its
planes, were worried about losing thousands of high-paying jobs to Europe
and the Gulf Coast.
Lawmakers that supported Boeing contended that Pentagon’s formula for
judging the bids favored the larger European plan over Boeing’s smaller one
.
Boeing, via Reuters
An illustration of the Boeing tanker refueling two other aircraft. | R*I
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