Boeing may decide not to rebid on tanker deal

[david_mcmanus]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... ing11.html

[WestSideBilly]

The USAF changed the RFP to match what NG/EADS offered, so there'd be little use in offering the 767 again, and the 777 probably couldn't compete price wise without Boeing losing their tale.

It's fairly obvious that the USAF procurement does not want to award this to Boeing.

[david_mcmanus]

Personally, I think they'll be making money hand over fist once they get the 787 out the door, but each delay makes Airbus look better. I think they should redouble their efforts on the 787 since this will be butter later on. It will be interesting to see how a possible strike would impact this, though.

[WestSideBilly]

My fairly limited understanding of it is that Boeing mainly wanted to get this to utilize the existing 767 line in Everett (which will instead be shut down and maybe converted to 787?), and as a stabilizer against the cyclical nature of commercial orders. $3B/year for the next 30 years would not make or break the company, but would be a nice stable revenue supply and utilize existing space.

The 787 was never on a reasonable time schedule and things seem to be going better now that the unrealistic schedule isn't being used.