Due to the overall rising cost of fuel, the Air Force is saddled with some $1.3 billion in extra fuel costs this fiscal year that it hadn’t anticipated, said Gen. Philip Breedlove, USAF’s vice chief of staff. “That will be money that we’ll have to go in and find in other sources . . . inside of our budget,” Breedlove told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s readiness panel on May 10. Looking towards Fiscal 2013, the Air Force also will face extra fuel costs if the over-land supply routes in Pakistan remain off limits to the United States and the US military has to bring out more equipment from Afghanistan by air as it withdraws combat forces, he said. “Much of the job of bringing home all of the equipment that the Marines and the Army need will fall to the backs of the Air Force to haul out” in that scenario, said Breedlove. “That will again be an unplanned [overseas contingency operations] bump in fuel requirements to the Air Force,” he said. (Breedlove’s written testimony)
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.