BA 767's

Just read in the business section of todays Mail on Sunday,

“A consortium led by Franco-German defence group EADS and Rolls-Royce is favorite to win a £13billion contract to supply the RAF with refuelling tankers.
A ferocious battle between EADS and Boeing for the massive deal will reach it’s climax tomorrow when a high-powered committee at the Ministry of Defence takes the crucial desicion.
But the competing parties will not know officially who has won the UK’s largest private finance initiative until the end of the yea, when the cabinet makes the final desicion.
The contract is to replace the RAF’s ageing tanker fleet of 33 tristars and ten VC-10s with about 20 converted airliners in a 27 year project.
The EADS consortium, know as AirTanker is offering up to 20 new Airbus A330s or a mix of new and second-hand aircraft.
Boeing-led rival consortium Tanker Team is proposing to convert 21 second-hand Boeing 767s that it is buying from British Airways. The conversion work would be carried out by Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge.
Sources at the MOD say that defence experts have been impressed by the lobbying of EADS and Rolls-Royce…………”

The Story goes on to say that EADS is better suited and becuse of trade unions being better off with the creation of more UK jobs and that this contract is vital for EADS, as it hopes to break Boeings hold of the air tanker market with is valued @ £60 billion over the next 30 years.

21 BA 767s, is that almost all of them???

FD