EADS North America will not protest the U.S. Air Force's decision to award a $35 billion aerial refueling contact to Boeing last week, senior company officials announced March 4.
The announcement clears the way for the Air Force to begin buying KC-135 replacements after more than a decade of trying to get the program off the ground.
Ralph Crosby, chairman of EADS North America, told reporters that while the company still believes it offered a better aircraft, it would not contest the service's selection of a smaller Boeing offer.
"After meeting with the Air Force and the Department of Defense, and evaluating the information they provided to us in their debriefing, EADS North America has decided not to protest the KC-X contract award," he said. "Our reasoning is simple: The acquisition architecture for this procurement ... was quite mechanistic and mathematical. The outcome was decided by price, and Boeing's offer was at a lower price than ours."
The company made the announcement during a briefing with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington. On Feb. 24, the Air Force announced it had chosen a tanker variant of the Boeing 767 to be its KC-X aircraft.
Sean O'Keefe, president and CEO of EADS North America, said the company believes it offered an "incredibly aggressive, very, very solid proposal."
Still, Crosby said the Air Force did not fully answer all of the company's questions during a debrief earlier this week.
"In this case, the debriefing was very brief," he said.
The announcement clears the way for the Air Force to begin buying KC-135 replacements after more than a decade of trying to get the program off the ground.
Ralph Crosby, chairman of EADS North America, told reporters that while the company still believes it offered a better aircraft, it would not contest the service's selection of a smaller Boeing offer.
"After meeting with the Air Force and the Department of Defense, and evaluating the information they provided to us in their debriefing, EADS North America has decided not to protest the KC-X contract award," he said. "Our reasoning is simple: The acquisition architecture for this procurement ... was quite mechanistic and mathematical. The outcome was decided by price, and Boeing's offer was at a lower price than ours."
The company made the announcement during a briefing with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington. On Feb. 24, the Air Force announced it had chosen a tanker variant of the Boeing 767 to be its KC-X aircraft.
Sean O'Keefe, president and CEO of EADS North America, said the company believes it offered an "incredibly aggressive, very, very solid proposal."
Still, Crosby said the Air Force did not fully answer all of the company's questions during a debrief earlier this week.
"In this case, the debriefing was very brief," he said.
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