Any news search for Boeing this week will result in a dozen or more stories about how the aircraft manufacturer lost a massive government contract to Northrop and European company Airbus.

Quick Summary
All government planes used to refuel other planes in the air are extremely old and need to be replaced. The U.S. government opened up bidding to the public and two companies responded: Boeing and Northrop/Airbus. There was heated debate over the possibility of a European manufacturer landing this tremendous $35 billion contract. Never before has a non-American manufacturer won this kind of government contract.

The question now is how does Boeing recover? No other American company can compete for these deals, and how do we know that one loss doesn’t lead to two or three? What happens if European contractors take away hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. economy? And maybe more importantly, how did Boeing screw this up?

These are questions investors will have to ask. $35 billion is nothing to scoff at. According to MSNBC, Boeing has been responsible for supplying refueling tankers to the Air Force for the past 50 years. That’s a lot of tradition and revenue to lose.

At this point in time, Boeing appears to be responding with silence and general acceptance of defeat. That could come back to haunt them in the days to come. Anytime your company or brand makes the headlines alongside negative words like “mistake, loses, loss, error, bad news, or defeated”, public perception and confidence in your brand dips at least marginally (if not drastically).

The Boeing PR staff better get it in gear. There’s another $65 billion out there to be had over the next 30 years, and Boeing needs to position itself to be the frontrunner to get it. I’ll keep an eye on this and see how it unfolds.

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