London's Financial Times reports that AirTanker Ltd., a consortium including "EADS, Rolls-Royce, Cobham,...Thales and VT Group," has been "contracted by the British government to provide 14 air-to-air Airbus A330-200 aircraft to replace the RAF's ageing fleet of "TriStar and VC-10 aircraft." The refuelers appear to be very similar to the ones the U.S. Air Force decided to procure to replace our aging KC135 fleet.
According to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which is the Association of Washington Business (AWB) national affliate and which recognizes AWB as Washington's state manufacturing association, the AP (3/28, Panja) explains, "Under the terms of the British deal, the planes will be owned by AirTanker, but will fly in RAF (Royal Air Force) colors, providing air-to-air refueling and passenger air transport tasks. The consortium will also have the rights to commercially lease five of the aircraft, which can carry 290 passengers and freight." According to one source, the deal is structured so "that the amount of money the consortium will receive will be directly linked to the amount of air miles flown by the new planes." The consortium is therefore "taking significant risk" that the RAF will "us[e] the aircraft a lot."
Many articles note that the U.K.'s decision follows a similar procurement initiative in the U.S., where "Boeing lost out in the race to land an initial $1.5 billion re-fueling contract for the U.S. Air Force" against Airbus, as Forbes (3/28, Laurent) points out. However, the British "situation...was rather different," in part because "the EADS consortium won the status of 'preferred bidder' back in 2005, with the financing of the bid proving the main sticking point until now." The International Herald Tribune (3/28, Clark), Bloomberg (3/28, Rothwell, Rothman), and the U.K.'s Guardian (3/28, Milner) also cover the story.
AWB supports Boeing's appeal of the U.S. Air Force decision to award the $35 billion 179 replacement refuelers to the Northrop, Grumman and EADS consortium. "We are hopeful the Air Force will reconsider and award all or at least a large part of the contract to Boeing which would build the replacements at Everett's Paine Field on the 767 airframe," AWB President Don C. Brunell said.
The Japanese and Italian governments already purchased the 767 aircraft.
Don C. Brunell, AWB President
