Farnborough 2024: Boeing bullish on Italian tanker bid

Boeing remains confident that Italy will select the KC-46A Pegasus now that the country's tanker requirement is being put to an open competition. (Boeing)

Boeing has pushed back against suggestions that Italy has walked away from buying its KC-46A Pegasus tanker-transport, telling Janes that the issues that caused the procurement to be suspended were programmatic and not related to the airframe itself.

Speaking at the Farnborough International Airshow 2024 on 24 July, Tim Flood, senior regional director international business development – Europe, Israel, and the Americas, said that the KC-46A was still very much in the running for Italy, despite the announcement earlier in July that the Directorate of Aeronautical Armaments and Airworthiness (ARMAEREO) had cancelled the plan to replace the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militaire Italiana: AMI) Boeing KC-767 (designated KC-767A in national service) aircraft with the KC-46A (KC-767B).

“Italy is a KC-767[A] operator, [and] they had a sole-source procurement in place to expand their fleet from four to six to the same standard. We have been in active dialogue with the Italians for a number of years [to do this via the KC-46A]. The decision to go to a competition is nothing to do with the KC-46A and whether or not the air force wanted that solution or not, it was entirely regarding industrial return when we couldn't get to an agreement [on that],” Flood said, adding that an open competition actually removes this industrial return requirement.