So what’s new?
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021...rce-isnt-sure/
What’s a fair price for KC-46 spare parts? The Air Force isn’t sure
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force recently awarded Boeing an $88 million contract for spare parts for
Japan’s KC-46 tankers, but service officials confirmed to Defense News on Monday the deal included about $10 million in costs that Air Force leaders investigated and could not determine if they were fair or reasonable.
That finding has led to concerns from Capitol Hill that Boeing is artificially inflating prices to help recoup financial losses incurred during
the program’s development stage. Thus far, the company has paid
more than $5 billion in cost overruns after winning a fixed-price contract in 2011 worth $4.9 billion.
“They’re trying to recover some of their costs on the back end, and they’re starting to recover their costs basically on some of these spares,” said one government official with knowledge of the contract discussions.
One part in particular now costs 15 times what the Air Force previously paid for it, the official said.
Virginia Rep. Rob Wittman — the top Republican on the House Armed Service’s Committee’s seapower and projection forces subcommittee — is expected to raise the issue during a HASC hearing on the Air Force budget scheduled for June 8.
“We need to change course on this troubled contract by pursuing one of two options,” Wittman said in a statement to Defense News.
“The Air Force could either change the contract incentive structure and actively manage the KC-46A development; or, seek a new path and pursue a non-developmental recompete of the tanker effort,” he said.
“Without pursuing one of these paths, at this point, I am confident that we will continue to see poor performance and an increasingly negative impact as tanker capacity is diminished.”….