By Marina Malenic
The Pentagon expects to release a revised Request for Proposals (RFP) this week for a contract to build a new fleet of U.S. Air Force aerial refueling tankers, sources said yesterday.
A Pentagon official confirmed that the RFP would be released “this week” but declined to be more specific.
The Pentaon was forced earlier this summer to rebid the contract for 179 new aircraft after the Government Accountability Office found flaws in the Air Force’s decision to award it to Northrop Grumman [NOC] and its industry partner, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).
Boeing [BA], meanwhile, announced that it is studying its options on whether to bid at all due to its perceived disadvantage in offering a smaller aircraft than that of its competitor. Northrop Grumman has offered a modification of its A330 aircraft, which has greater fuel capacity than Boeing’s KC-767.
On Aug. 6, the Pentagon issued a revised draft RFP that promises “positive consideration” for the ability to offload fuel in excess of the Air Force’s threshold requirement for the capability (Defense Daily, Aug. 7).
A Boeing spokesman said via e-mail that the company needs six months to present a new bid because it is studying “other configurations” that would provide greater fuel capacity.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the department wants to move ahead in “an expeditious fashion.”
“The proposal will have the specific timelines in it,” he told reporters at a briefing. “I’m not going to get into it now. And whether or not a company desires to compete is entirely up to them.”
“We have taken what the GAO has told us, what they have recommended for us to do, which in the scheme of the overall proposal were relatively minor but important, addressed all the concerns that the GAO raised,” he added.
Northrop Grumman, in a statement issued via e-mail, said “it views any delay to the amended request for proposal for the tanker replacement program as harmful to the warfighter and that a delay will result in a direct escalation in cost to the government thereby harming American taxpayers.”