Grumman decision disappoints on job front

The decision by Northrop Grumman Corp. not to submit a new bid to build aerial refueling planes for the Air Force is no surprise, but it is a disappointment to those on Long Island and in New York State hoping for more jobs.

From the very beginning, when the Air Force announced plans to replace its aging fleet of aerial tankers more than a decade ago, the program was problematic -- first for Boeing Co., which had built tankers for decades, then for the Air Force itself, and lastly for Northrop Grumman, which has a major facility in Bethpage, where some of the tanker jobs might have landed.

In 2008, the Air Force stunned analysts and aviation industry experts by awarding a $35-billion tanker contract to a team of Northrop Grumman and the French company EADS, over Boeing, which had been building such planes for the service for four decades.

A strong Boeing protest to the Government Accounting Office exposed problems in the Air Force's process for selecting a contract winner. The Air Force had to completely revamp the competition and ask for new bids for the tanker. Then Northrop Grumman complained that the new specs favored Boeing.

Earlier this week, Northrop Grumman chief executive Wes Bush pulled the plug, saying the company would not submit a new bid, leaving Boeing alone to capture the lucrative contract. Bush said in a statement the new specs "dramatically favor" Boeing's smaller design. Bush also called the Boeing design "less capable."

Boeing said it plans to submit "a fully responsive, transparent and competitive proposal that meets the terms of the Air Force announcement."

The Pentagon said that it was "deeply disappointed" by Northrop Grumman's decision. "We believe that the current competition is structured fairly and that both companies could compete effectively."

Bush said Northrop Grumman has "a fiduciary responsibility" to its shareholders and that "investing further resources to submit a bid would not be acting responsibly."

The real loser is New York State, which will not have the chance to gain 353 new high-tech jobs, some of which would have been in Bethpage and others at subcontractors elsewhere on the Island and in other parts of the state.