October 24, 200718 yr From Air Force Times Tanker contract award delayed to Feb. 29 By Gayle S. Putrich - Staff writer Posted : Wednesday Oct 24, 2007 7:20:58 EDT The Air Force is pushing back the award date of the $30 billion, 179-plane tanker contract until Feb. 29, according to industry and congressional sources. The service originally expected to award the contract for its top procurement priority before the end of this calendar year. Air Force officials did not provide comment by Oct. 23. Two competitors are vying for the contract: EADS and Northrop Grumman, offering an A330 variant called the KC-30, and Boeing with its modified 767 tanker. The Air Force has said it plans to have the first tanker in the air by 2013. Bids for the contract were submitted April 10, and the competitors have been fielding questions from the service ever since. Richard Aboulafia, military aviation analyst with the Teal Group in Virginia, said pushing the award date back just a few months was a winning move for the Air Force. “I think they have every reason to delay. I don’t see a downside to pushing it off,” he said. “There’s always a chance either product could experience a bigger technological glitch between now and the contract award, but it’s more likely that both products will mature.” Aboulafia said he wouldn’t count on this delay being the last. “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of it passing into the next fiscal year,” he said. Both competitors intend to militarize commercial planes already in production, both are testing the waters of the international market and both have chinks in their armor. Boeing landed the first contract in the international tanker game several years ago, when the Italians and the Japanese signed on for four planes each. But those deliveries have been long delayed — more than two years for the Italians. Boeing has been sorting out a high-speed airflow problem caused by the pylons used to hold wing refueling pods since 2005; the aerospace giant is now flight-testing the latest fix. More recent tanker awards have gone to Airbus, with Australia, Britain and the United Arab Emirates selecting the A330.
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