Northrop, EADS Win Fuel Tanker Contract

In a shocker of an announcement, the Air Force on Friday awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. and a European partner a $35 billion contract to build airborne refueling planes, delivering a major blow to Boeing Co.

The selection of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the maker of Airbus planes, surprised industry and elected officials. Air Force officials said the larger size of the Northrop-EADS aircraft helped tip the balance in its favor.

Chicago-based Boeing, which has been supplying refueling tankers to the Air Force for nearly 50 years and had been widely expected to hang onto that monopoly, could protest the decision, though the company said no decision has been made.

The tanker deal is also certain to become a flashpoint in a heated debate over the military's use of foreign contractors since Boeing painted the competition as a fight between an American company and its European rival. Lawmakers whose districts stood to gain jobs from a Boeing win were pressing this point on Friday.

"We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers," said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., who represents the district in Wichita where Boeing would have done much of the tanker work.

It shall be interesting to see if Boeing will contest this decision, and if lawmakers will get involved in a contract that gives Europeans great inroads into "our" Air Force, and the planes, "we" will fly in the future!



Northrop, EADS Win Fuel Tanker Contract