Boeing’s contention that its KC-767AT tanker costs less to operate over its life time than the EADS/Northrop Airbus A330 tanker appears to be supported by revelations in several redacted documents from Boeing’s protest with the Government Accounting Office (GAO) over the Air Force’s award of the KC-X contract.

Hundreds of pages of redacted documents related to Boeing’s protest were released this week and revelations about the strength of the company’s case have come to life. Excerpts from the redacted response, or comments, by Boeing on the Air Force’s Agency Report, which was filed in response to Boeing as part of the protest process, reveal the Air Force acknowledged that Boeing’s KC-767 has the lowest Most Probable Life Cycle Cost (MLPCC).

A revelation that Boeing says, contradicts initial statements that the Northrop/EADS aircraft “offered great advantage to the Government in cost price.”

Because the Boeing KC-767AT was in fact the lower-cost offering, the Source Selection Authority, should have conducted a tradeoff analysis of Northrop’s discriminators to ensure they were worth the additional costs. Because of the miscalculation of Northrop’s MPLCC, no such evaluation has been conducted.

Other issues raised in the documents include the fact that by excessively exceeding the fuel offload and airlift objective requirements should not be the basis for awarding the Airbus based tanker a “compelling discriminator.”

In addition it appears as though the inherent and significant risks associated with moving final assembly from Europe to Alabama and changing modification approaches during low-rate initial production weren’t appropriately assessed.