Boeing Source: We May Not Bid For KC-X
Boeing is considering not bidding for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X tanker contract, a company source said May 14.
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Boeing CEO Jim McNerney and other executives are privately debating whether their company can even win, much less make a profit, on the fixed-price contract, an executive told Defense News. (Boeing)
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CEO Jim McNerney and other executives are privately debating whether their company can even win, much less make a profit, on the fixed-price contract, one senior Boeing executive said.
“Is it conceivable that we wouldn’t bid?” the executive said. “We are proud of the fleet and want it to win the contract so the Air Force keeps flying our planes. Your heart says you have to be part of it, but a CEO’s job is to make sure that the heart doesn’t make a decision the head can’t live with.”
Boeing spokesman Damien Mills insisted May 13 that the firm will bid.
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Pentagon officials say they have changed neither the requirements nor the way the bids will be evaluated
“Jim doesn’t want to be in a position that we are going to bid a losing bid,” the Boeing executive said. “It gets difficult when you’re dealing with a competitor who has flat-out said on several occasions that they’re going to underbid us. How can they do that if the list price of their plane is higher than the list on our plane? Because they are subsidized and we’re a for-profit company, so the question we’re asking is: How do we compete against four governments?”
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The executive said Boeing has not arrived at a decision. He said raising the prospect of sitting out was not a negotiating tactic.
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as hilarious as it would be, it’ll never happen
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May 15, 2010 at 4:27 am