Top Pentagon officials, at a meeting on Jan. 17, rejected Northrop Grumman’s (NOC) concerns that the bidding criteria for an initial $20 billion competition to build a new fleet of more than 100 aerial refueling tankers favored Boeing (BA), say people familiar with the matter, BusinessWeek.com reports.
It now appears likely that Northrop will withdraw from what could be the richest military acquisition program of this generation,a program that eventually would replace more than 600 aging KC-135 and KC-10 refueling tankers and could be worth more than $100 billion over several decades. The first order on the contract is worth up to $20 billion for 179 planes.
