Boeing to mull tanker protest

After a several-hours-long meeting with Air Force acquisitions officials, Boeing still has “significant concerns” about the process by which Northrop Grumman and EADS were awarded a $40 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers, Boeing tanker program manager Mark McGraw said in a statement this afternoon.

It will now spend the weekend deciding whether to protest the decision, McGraw said, and hopes to reach a decision early next week.

“We spent several hours (today) with Air Force leaders, listening and probing, all in an effort to better understand the reasoning behind their decisions,” McGraw said. “While we are grateful for the timely debriefing, we left the room with significant concerns about the process in several areas, including program requirements related to capabilities, cost and risk; evaluation of the bids and the ultimate decision.”

Boeing, which proposed a variant of its 767, was widely expected to win the tanker competition. Since it lost last Friday, supporters in Congress have loudly questioned the decision, and the wisdom of giving such a big military contract to EADS, a European-owned company.

On Wednesday, Boeing defense CEO Jim Albaugh suggested that the company felt misled about how big a plane the Air Force wanted for its tanker. The A330 variant proposed by Northrop and EADS is bigger than Boeing’s 767, and can carry more fuel, cargo and troops, qualities some Air Force leaders have praised since announcing the award.

But Boeing said it determined today that the contest was closer than has been suggested in recent days. 

“What is clear now is that reports claiming that the Airbus offering won by a wide margin could not be more inaccurate,” McGraw said.

Boeing now has 10 days to file a protest with the Government Accountability Office, and hopes to decide soon if it will do so. Boeing rarely protests contract losses, a move that can delay work on a job for months or even years and rarely succeeds. Albaugh said Wednesday the company would only protest this time if it suspected “irregularities” with the contract process. McGraw said the company will think carefully before filing.

“It will be a very rigorous and deliberative process to ensure we’re balancing the needs of the warfighter with our desire to be treated fairly,” he said. “For decades Boeing has been recognized as a defense company that never takes lightly protests of our customers’ decisions.”