Boeing loses tanker to Northrop Grumman-EADS team

Boeing Co. was passed over today in the battle for a multibillion-dollar aerial tanker contract, the Air Force said.

The Department of Defense selected a bid from the team of Northrop Grumman and EADS, the parent company of Airbus, over Boeing to provide the Air Force with a new fleet of refueling tankers.

Boeing’s Wichita facility would have housed a finishing center to assemble and test the tankers. That was expected to create 300 to 500 jobs. The contract also was expected create another 500 jobs with local suppliers, including Spirit AeroSystems.

Overall, the economic impact to Kansas would have been about 3,800 jobs and $145 million a year, U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts and U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt said last month.

Roberts said today that he was “extremely disappointed” in the Air Force’s decision and vowed to insist on a briefing by the Air Force “to see the numbers that justify a contract for American planes going to a foreign entity, when the merits clearly reside with Boeing.”

“If this decision holds, it will be at the cost of American jobs and American dollars, if not our national security,” Roberts said.

Tiahrt said he would make sure the decision is thoroughly reviewed and would do his best to reverse it.

“I am deeply troubled by the Air Force’s decision to award the KC-X tanker to a French company that has never built a tanker in its history,” he said. “We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers. I cannot believe we would create French jobs in place of Kansas jobs.”

Northrop Grumman has estimated that a Northrop/EADS win would produce 2,000 new jobs in Mobile, Ala., and support 25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide. While the Northrop/EADS team would perform final assembly work in Mobile, Ala., the underlying plane would mostly be built in Europe. And it would use General Electric engines built in North Carolina and Ohio.

Boeing had estimated a win would support 44,000 new and existing jobs at Boeing and more than 300 suppliers in more than 40 states.

The new tankers, which will be called the KC-45A, are vital, Air Force officials say. By the end of the decade, the Air Force’s current fleet of 531 KC-135 and 59 KC-10 aircraft will reach an average age of 50 years old.

In choosing the Northrop/EADS tanker — based on the Airbus A330 commercial airliner — the Air Force chose a larger airplane than Boeing’s offering, which was based on the 767 commercial airliner.

Experts expect Boeing to file a protest.

Molly Mcmillin Wichita Eagle (KS) – February 29, 2008