Boeing Selects Cobham for Tanker Pods After Winning Order

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Boeing Co. picked Cobham Plc, the world’s largest maker of airborne-refueling equipment, to equip its fleet of new U.S. Air Force tanker jets, in a switch from the supplier of gear used on aircraft for Japan and Italy.
Cobham, based in Dorset in the U.K., will supply the 179 KC-46A tanker aircraft with a hose and drogue refueling systems, and will manufacture the equipment in Davenport, Iowa, the company said in a statement today. The tankers Boeing built for Japan and Italy used aerial refueling systems by General Electric Co.’s GE Aviation, formerly Smiths Aerospace.
“I can’t remember such a key supplier getting switched on something like this,” said Sandy Morris, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland in London.
Boeing yesterday beat European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. for a contract to build the first 18 tankers, extending its role as the sole supplier of Air Force refueling aircraft since 1948. EADS has won orders for its tanker, based on the A330 wide-body commercial jet, from countries including Australia.
“With this selection we are the sole supplier of these hose and drogue systems to Boeing on the KC-46 program,” Greg Caires, a Cobham spokesman, said in a telephone interview. “We’ve had two independent teams, firewalled off from one another, supporting the bids of both prime contractors.”
Confidentially agreements as part of the bid proposals mean Cobham can’t say what work it would have had from a winning EADS bid, he said. Cobham estimates the work could be worth up to $1 billion over the life of the project, and will be known about the value when the deal is made final, he said.
EADS was part of a Northrop Grumman Corp.-led team that won a 2008 contest, before a Boeing protest forced new bidding.
Cobham rose as much as 5.8 pence, or 2.7 percent, to 222.3 pence in London and traded at 221.8 percent at 12:20 p.m. local time, valuing the company at 2.56 billion pounds ($4.12 billion). The stock has risen 9 percent so far this year.