It has just been announced that Northrop/Airbus will not bid for the multi-million dollar Air Force new tanker contract quoting the USAF’s latest selection criteria which clearly favours Boeing’s smaller offering.
Originally, Northrop/Airbus were offering a tanker based on the Airbus 330 and Boeing on the 767. The new tanker is to replace the current crop of tankers based on the Boeing 707.
The first competition was won by Northrop but Boeing successfully appealed the decision, triggering a second round of bidding. Airbus had grand plans of penetrating the US defense market on the back of an eventual tanker contract. The folks in Mobile, Alabama stand to lose also as the $600 million plant that was to be built there to assemble the tanker will now not materialize.
Boeing has reason to celebrate. It has a lock on one of the biggest defense deals in US history and the precedent they have created will no doubt influence the outcome of future procurements also. They may or may not go to Boeing of course but a more pronounced preference for US sourcing of strategic war materiel cannot be excluded.
Now, Boeing will have no competition and the Air Force will have no choice.
The decision by Northrop Grumman has ramifications worldwide. When the Pentagon tilted the playing field after being bullied by Boeing, the United States sent a message to the world that provincial isolationism is more important than the benefits and the reality of a global economy.
Considerating how much of this nation’s appalling national debt is held by China and other “foreigners,” the failure to ensure open competition says that this nation needs their help but doesn’t want their business.