Alabama Aircraft Industries Inc. has decided not to place too much stock in the Government Accountability Office’s recent rejection of its protest over the Air Force’s KC-135 depot maintenance contract award to Boeing. Instead, AAII (formerly Pemco) plans to file a lawsuit in federal claims court. GAO first sustained a portion of AAI’s protest issues, but in its most recent ruling (June 13) side with USAF, prompting the service to lift its stop work order. In a June 26 release, AAII states it is the company’s “firm belief” that “if proposals were evaluated fully and reasonably, it would be selected” for this contract, valued at some $1 billion. Using similar language to what Boeing has used in its protest of the KC-X award to rival Northrop Grumman-EADS, AAII President Ron Aramini said, “We believe that the Air Force’s award of the KC-135 maintenance contract to Boeing is significantly flawed.”
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.