It shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone that the bidding has reopened for the lucrative aerial tanker contract. Especially after the GAO sustained Boeing's bid protest last month regarding the award given to the team of Northrop Grumman and EADS. What is a bit of a shocker, is that the new competition for the replacement of the KC-135 will not be overseen by the Air Force, as it was before. This time the DoD will run the contest straight from the Pentagon due to an overwhelming lack of confidence in the Air Force to manage the contract. Congressman Norm Dicks (of WA, it should be noted) was quoted as saying "I think it's better. No one has any faith in the Air Force." The GAO report pointed out some "significant errors" made by the Air Force in the original contest and suggested that Boeing might have won the contract if not for these mistakes. Boeing was pitting, and will again, its 767-based refueler against Northrop Grumman's Airbus A330 based tanker. The $35 billion contract will now have a limited rebid by the Pentagon, who claims they will pick a new winner by the end of the year. Meanwhile, a ragged old KC-135 somewhere around the world is begging to be put out of its misery.
(via MSNBC)
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008
DoD reopens tanker contract bidding, bypasses Air Force
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1 comments:
It really looks as though my beloved Air force really screwed up this one.
Boeing (if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going) owns a share of this fiasco. First for its less than ethical actions the first time around, and second for paying too much attention to the back shop guys and not enough to the actual decision makers.
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