EUROPEAN Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co CEO Louis Gallois has said he is confident his company and United States partner Northrop Grumman Corp will win a disputed US$35-billion Pentagon tanker contract for the US Air Force when the bidding process reopens.

The US Air Force in February selected the Northrop team to replace 179 Eisenhower-era aerial refueling planes. Boeing filed a protest in March, and last week US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will reopen the bid.

"We will get the tanker because we have the best airplane," Gallois, head of the European aerospace and defense giant, told reporters yesterday in the village of Dogmersfield in southern England.

The deal ?? one of the largest in Pentagon history ?? is the first of three contracts worth up to US$100 billion to replace nearly 600 refueling tankers over the next 30 years.

The air force's original decision sparked fury among US politicians, who objected to the deal being awarded to an overseas contractor. Boeing had supplied refueling tankers to the air force for nearly 50 years.

The decision also came as a surprise to some. John Young, chief operating officer for EADS North America, told reporters yesterday that even his mother was shocked.

"But I wasn't," he said. "We have the best product and frankly that will stand the test of time."

Following Boeing's complaint, the Government Accountability Office last month detailed "significant errors" the air force made in the original award to the Northrop team. The GAO said Chicago-based Boeing, which protested the deal, might have won had the service not made mistakes in evaluating the bids.

Gates said his office, not the air force, will check the competition and pick a winner by the end of the year.

Young said he expects the process will be finish after the US presidential elections, but before a new government is established.