The Northrup Grumman air tanker deal is dead. Air Force notified the company last week that it will terminate the 179-plane deal. Two problems – Boeing wasn’t going to stay quiet about a potential $40-billion contract and Northrup Grumman’s partner is European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co, or EADS, the parent company of Airbus.
Also Mobile Press Register reports:
From the day that EADS chose Mobile as the site for its proposed assembly plant in June 2005, analysts predicted that its European origins would be an issue if its side were to win the tanker work. It was also Boeing’s good fortune that two of its staunchest congressional allies — U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. — sit on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which has first crack at reviewing the Pentagon’s yearly spending plans.
Read Tanker setback a harsh lesson.
It didn’t help that our Republican Senator Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist never got fully behind the proposal.
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