OK, the press conference is over.

My first reaction - this is a huge strategic win for Airbus' parent company, EADS. The Pentagon is the biggest weapons buyer in the world, and EADS wants - heck, needs - to get a share of that.

It also opens the door for Airbus to start assembling A330s here in the United States. That's a short-term victory for the company, which wants to do more manufacturing work outside the Euro zone. Moving A330 work here will lower its costs.

Tactically, it's a blow to Boeing, but not a killer one. The initial contract is only for 68 planes, with a maximum of 179. As go-to analyst Richard Aboulafia said recently, full production is only going to be 14 planes a year - a drop in the ocean compared to Boeing's annual production of more than 400 commercial jets.

But strategically, it hurts. It gives Airbus a big foot in the door in the U.S., for both sales and manufacturing. And it's a general vote of no-confidence by an important customer.

Having a new aerospace cluster in the Southeast also raises the stakes for us here in the Northwest. We're no longer competing against Europe for work - we're competing with the good ol' boys down in Alabama. Long-term, they're going to be a player as aerospace companies consider where to put new manufacturing plants.

On to the press conference.

Assistant Air Force Secretary Susan Payton said she wasn't going to discuss why Boeing's bid fell short until after her staff has a chance to brief the company. And then she and Air Force Air Mobility commander Gen. Arthur Lichte went ahead and spilled at least some of the beans.

The big advantage of the EADS/Northop plane is that it's bigger than Boeing's KC-767, Lichte said. That means "more passengers, more cargo, more fuel to off-load, more patients to carry."

Payton said the EADS/Northrop proposal scored high in terms of the plane's refueling and airlift capabilities - again, because it's bigger - and added that  the EADS/Northrop proposal was less risky, because "their (presumably Northrop's) past performance was excellent."

This is where Boeing's problems with the KC-767 came back to bite them. The tankers the company sold to the Italian and Japanese air force almost seven years ago are just now being delivered. Boeing has had all kinds of trouble getting the planes to fly right. (Literally - there's been a flutter problem at certain speeds.)

These problems with the KC-767 apparently seemed so bad to the Air Force, that it will rather move ahead with airplanes that will be built in a brand new factory by a brand new workforce, using an assembly method that's never been tried before. (The KC-30s, in case you hadn't heard, are going to be assembled from kits put together in France by newly hired Northrop and EADS workers in a brand-new factory in Mobile, Ala.)

This is the biggest surprise for me. Building the planes in the new Mobile factory is inherently more risky than building them in an existing facility, with an experienced work force utilizing parts provided by an already-in-place supply chain. We need look no further than the problems Boeing's having with its 787 suppliers to see just how hard it is to start an aerospace industry from scratch.

Lichte also talked about the KC-30's superior "flexibility." I'm not sure what that means - Boeing touted the KC-767 as more flexible because it can operate from more airfields. But it could reflect the fact that the larger KC-30 would have more range, making it better-suited for operations across the vast Pacific theater.

Payton said the U.S. content factor - that is, which plane would create more jobs - wasn't considered. "We balanced the requirements of the war fighter with the best interests of the taxpayer," she said.

And Lichte tried to downplay the amount of European-built components that will go into the new planes, which the Air Force has designated KC-45As.

"This is an American tanker," he said. "It has a big American flag on the tail."

She also said that Boeing's tortured history with tanker contracts wasn't an issue either. "The Darlene Druyun situation was a half a decade ago," she said. "There was absolutely no bias against Boeing."

So, this round goes to Airbus (and Northrop). As I've mentioned before, insiders tell me flat out that Boeing will appeal this decision, probably within days of a March 12 meeting in which Pentagon staffers will explain to the company why it didn't get picked. From Gov. Gregoire's comments earlier this week, it's extremely likely that Boeing's friends in Congress (particularly Patty Murray and Norm Dicks) will push for hearings to overturn the Air Force's choice.