Not only am I surprised at the appearance of violating anti-trust regulations in the US by allowing Boeing to shut out competition, in the original AP article I read of the contract decision, it was based on the fact that Northrup & EADS met the required specifications regarding tanker refeuling capacity, whereas Boeing did not.
Boeing's massive public relations effort dominated by misstatements of fact should not be allowed to succeed in overturning this contract with Northrop/EADS. At this point it appears to be a political game between Washington State and Illiniois officials on one hand and Alabama, John McCain and the rest of the USA on the side of EADS/Northrop. This would be a bad signal to the US's European Partners to not complete the award of this contract and start building the needed planes.
by Mark S. Daniels (not verified) - 19/06/2008 - 05:30
Makes you wonder if the GAO included the costs of the Boeing/Air Force scandal involving the lease of 767 tankers into the cost of the new 767 versus the Airbus A330/KC-45.
America and its allies need a new tanker now to replace an already aging fleet. A KC-135 Stratotanker from the late 1950s was retired just last week.
There appears to be a need for both the larger KC-45 and the smaller KC-767.
Why not quit fooling around and order both? Otherwise, hold a fly-off and settle this once and for all.
The economic climmate in the U.S. is no reason to short change Airbus, the folks in Mississippi who'll be running an assembly line, nor the folks in the military needing a new tanker right now.
Continued mistakes by the U.S. Air Force are no reason to punish Airbus. And with both tankers in the inventory, there's plenty of work to go around, both in Europe and the U.S.
We should have been working together a minimum of thirty years ago on joint projects.
Comments (3)
bad sport Boeing
Not only am I surprised at the appearance of violating anti-trust regulations in the US by allowing Boeing to shut out competition, in the original AP article I read of the contract decision, it was based on the fact that Northrup & EADS met the required specifications regarding tanker refeuling capacity, whereas Boeing did not.
Northrop EADS contract should be allowed to stand
Boeing's massive public relations effort dominated by misstatements of fact should not be allowed to succeed in overturning this contract with Northrop/EADS. At this point it appears to be a political game between Washington State and Illiniois officials on one hand and Alabama, John McCain and the rest of the USA on the side of EADS/Northrop. This would be a bad signal to the US's European Partners to not complete the award of this contract and start building the needed planes.
Makes You Wonder
Makes you wonder if the GAO included the costs of the Boeing/Air Force scandal involving the lease of 767 tankers into the cost of the new 767 versus the Airbus A330/KC-45.
America and its allies need a new tanker now to replace an already aging fleet. A KC-135 Stratotanker from the late 1950s was retired just last week.
There appears to be a need for both the larger KC-45 and the smaller KC-767.
Why not quit fooling around and order both? Otherwise, hold a fly-off and settle this once and for all.
The economic climmate in the U.S. is no reason to short change Airbus, the folks in Mississippi who'll be running an assembly line, nor the folks in the military needing a new tanker right now.
Continued mistakes by the U.S. Air Force are no reason to punish Airbus. And with both tankers in the inventory, there's plenty of work to go around, both in Europe and the U.S.
We should have been working together a minimum of thirty years ago on joint projects.