EADS North America officials expressed disappointment on Thursday after the Air Force chose Boeing’s 767-based tanker aircraft over their own A330-based KC-45 tanker to replace the service’s oldest KC-135s. “This is certainly a disappointing turn of events, and we look forward to discussing with the Air Force how it arrived at this conclusion,” said EADS North America Chairman Ralph Crosby in a release. He did not indicate whether the company would challenge the Air Force’s decision. “With a program of such complexity, our review of today’s decision will take some time. There are more than 48,000 Americans who are eager to build the KC-45 here in the US, and we owe it to them to conduct a thorough analysis,” stated Crosby. The Air Force is expected to provide EADS officials with a briefing sometime in the next week or so to explain why service officials deemed Boeing’s bid to be better.
The Pentagon announced new long-term agreements with four defense companies May 13 to develop and produce large numbers of low-cost cruise missiles. And while the effort will focus mostly on the Army to start, it pairs with Air Force efforts to find more affordable munitions.