24 November – Update: The Air Force reportedly reassigned the two persons involved in sending the information to the wrong bidders. They still claim that the error will not affect the contest. EADS has said on record that haven’t ruled out a protest based on this incident.

The Air Force in a recent announcement confirmed that the source selection for the KC-X new aerial tanker won’t be completed until second quarter of Fiscal Year 2011. This was part of a much more important admission by the military that they had accidentally sent evaluation information on Boeing (BA) and EADS (EADS:P) bids to the wrong teams. Boeing got EADS and vice versa.

The computer data files sent to the contractors included pricing data for the two bids. The effect of this error on the whole contest is yet undetermined and the Air Force seems to be trying to push through with the hope that the leak is minimal. Without the companies coming forward to admit to looking at the data there is no way of knowing how much effect this will have on the proposals.

Certainly this adds yet another twist to the ongoing saga that is the KC-X competition and will certainly play a role if there is a protest by the losing bidder.

Supposedly in a meeting between DoD and Air Force officials with members of the Alabama Congressional delegation it came out that the U.S.A.F. will adjust the KC-X RFP to keep Northrop Grumman (NOC) and EADS (EADS.P) in the competition. This of course is a report by Senator Sessions (R-AL) from the meeting. There is no official response as to how the U.S. officials will react to Northrop’s threatened non-participation.

It is in the best interest of the U.S. Government to have two bidders for this program and this may be a necessary step to assure that.

It has been reported that last week Boeing (BA), Northrop Grumman (NOC) and EADS (EADS.P) had a series of meetings with the Air Force to discuss the draft KC-X RFP and the final one. After these meetings EADS and Northrop made clear that their threat not to submit a bid without changes to the RFP language was not an idle negotiation ploy as some have said. The companies believe that the current RFP is biased towards the smaller, cheaper Boeing 767 rather then the larger Airbus 330.

The discussions also indicate that the final RFP will come out before the end of January. Without two bidders it will be hard for the Air Force to proceed so they need a proposal from Northrop and EADS. At the same time they must have an RFP that will hopefully be protest proof and get the needed capability quickly.

The Boeing plant located in Wichita has a long and distinguished history of supporting that company’s military programs. It is safe to assume that if Boeing does win the KC-X contract that some of the work will be done there. That means that Kansas’ leaders are very interested in Boeing winning the deal. In the spirit of this it was reported that the Kansas Governor, Mark Parkinson, recently met with the Air Force Secretary. The former Governor of the state, Kathleen Sebelius, is now a cabinet secretary in the Obama Administration which certainly allows for some low key lobbying.

With the continued economic problems facing the country good manufacturing jobs are hard to come by and this means that mayors, governors and legislators will all be doing their part to support the different bidders in this process.