Airbus manufacturer may bid for Air Force tankers

European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company officials on Friday signaled they might jump into the lucrative competition to build 179 aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force.

In a statement released Friday morning, the European consortium that manufactures Airbus planes said the Defense Department has indicated it would welcome a proposal from the firm for the contract, worth as much as $40 billion.

"This is a significant development," the company said. "EADS is assessing this new situation to determine if the company can feasibly submit a responsive proposal to the department's request for proposal."

EADS had long been partnered with Northrop Grumman Corp. in the competition and planned to build the tankers at a facility it would build in Mobile, Ala., if successful. But last week, Northrop dropped out, arguing that the Air Force's request for proposals unfairly favored the smaller Boeing 767 over the Airbus A330 they were offering.

On Thursday, Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell told Bloomberg News in an e-mail that the Pentagon had received notification from EADS "indicating possible interest in competing for the Air Force's KC-X Tanker and we would welcome that."

Morrell added that the Pentagon would consider a "reasonable extension" of the May 10 deadline to respond to the request for proposals to give EADS more time to submit its bid. "That is not unusual," Morrell said.

In its statement, EADS said it would need a "significant extension" of the deadline, but also said it would only be one factor in its decision to compete for the contract.

"In the end, the company will only submit a proposal if there is a fair chance to win, after evaluating all relevant factors," the company said.

EADS supporter Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said in an e-mailed statement Friday that an extension is "the least" the Pentagon can do.

"The Department of Defense has botched this competition for years," he said. "The least it can do now is grant a reasonable extension of the timeline for a chance to have a fair, open and transparent competition that delivers the most capable plane to our warfighters."

During a breakfast in New York on Thursday, EADS chief executive Louis Gallois told reporters he was "extremely frustrated" by the outcome of the tanker contest, which the Northrop-EADS team won in early 2008. A protest by rival bidder Boeing Co. was upheld by the Government Accountability Office, resulting in cancellation of the contract by the Defense Department, which launched another competition.

Gallois said the current May 10 deadline would be impossible for EADS to meet now that Northrop, which functioned as the prime contractor, has bowed out.

"Is it the end of the story? That's not in our hands. That's in the hands of the Pentagon," he said.

Whether EADS would bid on its own or team up with another U.S. company remains unclear. Gallois told reporters that no U.S. firms had yet approached EADS about partnering for the tanker competition.

Boeing supporters have already balked at the prospect of extending the RFP deadline, arguing that doing so would further delay the program, which the military needs to replace the Eisenhower-era KC-135s now flown by the Air Force.

The Boeing tanker would be built at the firm's aircraft production plant in Everett, Wash., with military modifications done in Wichita, Kan. On Tuesday, Kansas lawmakers sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates a letter urging him not to extend the deadline.

"EADS has had ample time to prepare a bid," Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said in a statement today. "Clearly they are not up to the task of meeting deadlines, or providing a tanker."