There seems to be a fixation here about GAO's sustainment of Boeing's protest in terms of the technical aspects of the Airbus vs Boeing bid for the original KC-X award.
I'd like to reiterate that GAO did not sustain some of Boeing's objections on technical grounds. It never said which aircraft was "better" and even made a point of saying it wasn't in that business and wasn't doing that. What it did, as it always does, was rule on contractual grounds. It said the USAF so botched up their analysis in the award of the contract that as it stood, the award could not stand. USAF started out saying it wanted one thing, decided it wanted something else and rather than properly redo the thing just went and shoehorned the analysis so it would come out the way they now wanted.
This was not the only time this happened. TheKC-X fiasco was just one of a series of contractual screwups the USAF did in the mid 2000s. Awards were canceled or overturned, people were replaced, some even went to jail on things. It all could have been avoided even they just did their job right.
Let me again quote from GAO's findings: "In its decision, GAO recommends that the Air Force reopen discussions with the offerors,
obtain revised proposals, re-evaluate the revised proposals, and make a new source selection decision, consistent with GAO’s decision. GAO
further recommends that, if the Air Force believed that the solicitation does not adequately state its needs, the agency should amend the
solicitation prior to conducting further discussions with the offerors".
That's all they had to do.
Last edited by Commando Cody; 11th Apr 2020 at 20:35.