Tanker News
Pentagon Reopens Refueling Tanker Contract
AFP(9/25, De Luce) reports that Pentagon "reopened competition for a long-delayed contract to build aerial refueling tankers, vowing fair treatment for aviation rivals Boeing and Airbus parent EADS." Officals said the Defense Department "will use concrete criteria in judging proposals instead of the 'confusion' that plauged a failed attempt last year to award a contact." Two "previous attempts to award the 35-billion-dollar contract collapsed amid scandal and bitter disputes between Boeing and its rivals Northrop Grumman and Airbus's parent firm EADS, the European Aeronatic Defence and Space Company."
The New York Times (9/25, B1, Drew) reports on the front page of its Business Day section that Pentagon officals "promised that the rules would be clear enough to streer the holly disputed contest 'straight down the middle." Congressional leaders "said the Air Force seemed to have come up with a major objective process for judging the differences in the planes than it had before." But military analysts "said it would be hard to tell whether the new process would provide an advantage to wither side until the companies could study a draft of the request for bids, to be released Friday." The Wall Street Journal(9/25,B3,Cole,Sanders) and the Financial Times also report the story.
