The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 17 overturned an earlier ruling by a lower court and restored a $1 billion KC-135 maintenance contract to Boeing that had been disputed by Alabama Aircraft Industries. The appeals court said the lower claims court erred when it called USAF’s “price-realism analysis” during the contract award process “arbitrary and capricious.” AAI protested the award to the Government Accountability Office, which eventually upheld the Air Force decision to award the contract to Boeing. AAI then filed a lawsuit in federal claims court and won that round last fall. (Also see Reuters report; Birmingham News report) (Appeals court ruling)
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.