Four Cities Chosen In Airbus Tanker Competition

EADS North America's competition to select a US industrial site to support the KC-330 advanced tanker program has been narrowed to locations in four states, which have been asked to provide additional information in a Request for Proposal (RFP) issued Tuesday.

The selected site would become the center of industrial activity for the KC-330, which EADS North America is offering to the US Air Force as a replacement for the KC-135 refueling fleet. The facility will begin operations in 2006 with the establishment of an aircraft engineering center.

Finalist sites and states receiving RFPs are Mobile Downtown Airport, Mobile, Alabama

• Melbourne International Airport, Melbourne, Florida
• Stennis International Airport, Kiln, Mississippi
• Charleston International Airport, North Charleston, South Carolina

EADS North America initiated the KC-330 industrial site selection process with a Request for Information (RFI) issued to all 50 states in January 2005. Over 70 candidate locations from 32 states responded to the RFI. Today's RFP release to finalist locations marks the next step in the company's selection process, which is being managed on behalf of EADS North America by The Staubach Company -- an international real estate and management firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

"Issuing the RFP to a short-list of highly qualified candidate locations is a significant milestone in the tanker industrial facility site selection process," said Ralph D. Crosby, Jr., EADS North America's Chairman and CEO. "We were extremely pleased with the number and variety of responses we received in the competition's first phase. Each proposed site reflected the high quality of industrial capability in the United States, and reinforced our commitment to establish a major aircraft assembly center in the United States to produce tankers for the US Air Force.

"After careful evaluation, four locations emerged as the sites most capable of meeting the transportation, personnel and manufacturing demands of large military aircraft assembly. We express our thanks to each state and local government that responded to the RFI. The site we ultimately select will be our partner in creating the US industrial capacity necessary to produce the best, most capable aerial refueling tanker aircraft for the US Air Force," Crosby added.

The selection process has been accelerated in order to align EADS North America's industrial activities with the potential acquisition schedule of the US Air Force. The four states that received the RFP will have approximately 3 weeks in which to respond. Following the receipt of RFP inputs, EADS North America will conduct a final evaluation leading to selection of the winning location by July 2005.

EADS North America previously announced that it will team with US industrial partners, and has committed to establishing assembly and support facilities in the United States that could eventually employ more than 1,000 persons.

FMI: www.usatanker.com, www.airbus.com