Air Force: No word on tanker today

Boeing Co. will have to wait at least one more day before learning if it has won the coveted $40 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force.

While a key board met Monday to decide about the contract - being hotly contested by Boeing and a team of Northrop Grumman and EADS North America - an Air Force spokeswoman said no announcement will come today. Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a defense analyst with close ties to the Pentagon, says he’s been told there’s a 60 percent chance the news will come Wednesday.

For months, the Air Force has been delaying the awarding of this contract, to make sure it follows all proper procedures in the hopes of avoiding a protest by the losing bidder. It is unclear what’s causing the delay at this point, but top Pentagon weapons buyer John Young must yet sign the official paperwork.

On the day it awards the contract, the Air Force plans to notify key lawmakers, the companies and then the public, late in the afternoon after stock markets close. 

The stakes are high. The job is one of the biggest plane-building contracts to be awarded this decade, and the loser may well be out of the tanker business for years to come. If Northrop and EADS win, EADS subsidiary Airbus expects to also build A330 freighters at a plant it would build in Alabama, threatening Boeing’s status as this country’s only maker of large commercial aircraft.