AIRBUS parent company EADS is reported to be poised to choose an American company to partner it in a fresh bid for a massive US aerial tanker refuelling contract.
EADS is said to have held talks with several potential partners, including US defence contractor Raytheon and the US unit of Britain’s BAE Systems.
But New York-based L-3 Communications Holdings is emerging as the most likely candidate for a tie-up.
A successful bid for the £25bn, 179-tanker plane contract could bring around 10 years’ work, worth £5bn, to Airbus’s wingmaking plant at Broughton, near Chester.
The military work would help balance the peaks and troughs in the civilian airliner programmes at the plant.
Massachusetts-based Raytheon said it had no plans to join an EADS bid for the tanker project. BAE Systems, L-3 and EADS are all refusing to comment, but industry sources said BAE Systems, which owned 20% of Airbus until 2006, will not step in as a partner.
EADS and US firm Northrop Grumman won the last tanker competition in February, 2008, but the Pentagon cancelled the deal months later after government auditors upheld a protest by US aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
