PAUL LEWIS / WASHINGTON DC
Airbus angry at 767-200ER tanker leasing deal
Airbus president and chief executive Noel Forgeard has accused the US government of providing direct aid to Boeing as a hastily agreed plan to lease up to 100 767-200ER tankers awaits the go-ahead from the US Congress.
The US political push to fast- track a $20 billion leasing deal for the tankers has been branded part of a "Boeing Marshall Plan" to provide aid to the US airframe builder by the Airbus boss in an interview with the French newspaper Les Echos. The Marshall Plan was a post-Second World War scheme in which the US government funded the rescue of the economies of France, Germany and other European nations.
Sources within Airbus parent EADS have previously voiced anger over the moves to lease the aircraft over a 10-year period without putting the programme out to competition, in order to bolster Boeing's flagging order book.
However, Forgeard's public intervention will reignite the long running dispute between Europe and the US over aid, particularly as Washington has been gearing up for a battle over what it alleges is unfair aid for the development of the Airbus A380. Europe has always claimed that US firms like Boeing receive indirect aid for their civil business through defence funding.
The proposed lease deal effectively short circuits the US Air Force's planned KC-X tanker competition to replace the ageing Boeing KC-135, for which EADS had hoped to compete with a tanker version of the A330. Forgeard said the deal was being done "at a price which, in our opinion, includes a considerable margin, and this is direct aid".
"We can see the reason why they are moving so quickly, but not holding a competition is against everything we would expect from an open market. If someone had asked us we could probably have made an offer for less money," claims a senior EADS executive.
Accelerating the KC-X programme by two to three years leaves EADS unable to respond without a US partner to counter Boeing's strong Congressional lobby. The company is still in the process of trying to select a partner from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, for KC-X and the US Navy's planned Multi-role Maritime Aircraft programme to replace the Lockheed Martin P-3C and the US Navy's Airborne Common Sensor platform.
The 767 tanker proposal is still dependent on Congress agreeing the final make-up of the defence budget and the US president signing it into law.
Source: Flight International
