AFP - The Pentagon is expected to unveil Thursday its decision on the mega-tanker contract from the U.S. Air Force, for which the U.S. aviation giant Boeing and Europe's EADS are competing for several years.
Several congressional sources said on condition of anonymity Wednesday that the decision on the contract of $ 35 billion was to be unveiled Thursday.
The solicitation is 179 tanker aircraft to replace the aging fleet of KC-135 U.S. Air Force from the 50.The Pentagon will buy these devices at a rate of 15 per year maximum and plans to spend $ 900 million in 2012.
According to Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank based in Arlington, near Washington, EADS appears poised to win the contract.
The history of this tender is peppered with twists, including a spy scandal, and the contract was canceled twice, having been awarded to Boeing for the first time in 2003 and a second in 2008 to Airbus and Northrop Grumman.
EADS, the parent company of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, launches this time without a major trading partner, but with the support of hundreds of U.S. equipment.
EADS submitted a military version of its Airbus A330, the KC-45, it boasts as "the only real-tanker aircraft already in operation" while the version presented by the 767 Boeing is "on paper" and argues that its production in the United States would generate 48,000 jobs in the country.
The European firm announced last week it had revised its price down to steal the contract.
Boeing says his side as he presented the instrument ensure "better operational capabilities to U.S. combat aircraft with a fuel consumption 24% lower than the unit proposed by EADS," and that support 50,000 jobs in the United States.
In Congress, elected representatives of the States of Washington, Kansas (center), Missouri (center), Michigan (north) and South Carolina (southeast), where Boeing plants or subcontractors working with the manufacturer, have been campaigning for months for the selection of the American.
However, elected officials in Alabama (south) where the tanker would be assembled to support the European Airbus.
