Advantage Airbus

On March 2nd, I wrote about the Air Force's award of a new contract for the next generation of refueling tanker aircraft to Airbus, in a blog titled "Buy Now, Pay Later". I was incensed that America's premier aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, had lost the bid, and that $35 billion of U.S. taxpayer money was headed mostly overseas for an American military aircraft.

The only mitigating circumstance to this travesty, which I acknowledged at the time, was that it had been a competitive bid process, and that I felt that these massive awards should be handled that way. Still, I thought that Boeing should still be given some small advantage in the process, such as a right to first refusal or some such slight accommodation.

Well today, we find out that not only was Boeing denied any kind of minuscule advantage, they were actually working from a disadvantage due to Air Force personnel actually pushing different and more costly construction specifications to Boeing, and not to Airbus. In other words, the playing field wasn't level at all. Airbus was effectively quoting to build a lesser aircraft. This is beyond belief!

Nothing is being said right now about whether this was inadvertent or perhaps designed by someone to purposely give Airbus the advantage. More to come on that I presume. I'm just pleased that this process was taken back and reviewed. Boeing is now feeling confident that they can win. It won't hurt that they'll finally be playing in a fair fight this time. To me, this should be a done deal; the work goes to Boeing, and a couple of Air Force procurement managers get a ride out of town.....on an Airbus!