WASHINGTON — Boeing is slated to meet with Pentagon officials today over the latest phase of a disputed $40 billion tanker contract as the company prepares its response to what some lawmakers and analysts have uttered are new guidelines that countenance the larger smooth of the rival Northrop Grumman-EADS team.
The concourse at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, will exist to discuss the new draft request for proposals (RFP) issued last week. The document outlines the Pentagon’s requirements towards the new fleet of 179 aerial-refueling planes for the Air Force.
Boeing spokesman Dan Beck would not discuss the comments the company gave to the Pentagon put on Sunday or the nature of the upcoming talks.
Boeing has not had any substantial reaction to the new guidelines, issued after its protest of the protoplast award to Northrop Grumman and its partner European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS), Airbus’ parent. A Government Accountability Office review lay the foundation of “forcible errors” in the Air Force’s decision, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates reopened the bidding.
Defense analysts say Boeing could register its objections to the new RFP by filing another protest or threatening not to bid at all. Either option could trail out development of a plane the Air Force badly needs to replace its 1950s-era tankers.
“Boeing settlement need to do everything in its power to maximize the competitive balance of that RFP,” said analyst Jim McAleese.
That means painful to overcome language in the draft request that appears to give extra credit to the Northrop-EADS KC-45 plane over Boeing’s KC-767.
The new settlement will give “additional value” to a flat that have power to infer more fuel than is required, power that Boeing’s Capitol Hill supporters have related favors Northrop’s larger plane.
Boeing could submit a bid based without ceasing its larger Boeing 777 commercial aircraft or a stretched version of its original scheme. But some analysts and Boeing allies suggest the tight time frame of the newly come bidding — the Pentagon wants to pick a winner by dint of. the end of the year — would make it difficult to re-engineer its proposal.
“There is absolutely no way that they could do that,” said George Behan, a speaker concerning Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, one of Boeing’s staunchest supporters in Congress.
Boeing’s blockhead fell $1.24, or 1.8 percent, to $66.62 on Monday after a report in Aviation Week, citing unnamed sources, said the company may not submit a call because of concerns over the new RFP.
Beck would not comment on the report and Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman related there was nay indication that one or the other company would bow out of bidding.
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