The stakes were huge - a $35 billion contract for 179 tanker jets - but in the end European aerospace giant EADS saw no chance in winning. On Monday, its U.S. partner Northrop Grumman withdrew its joint bid with EADS to build tankers for the Pentagon based on an Airbus aircraft model. EADS officials claim the new bidding process was tailored exclusively for a Boeing win.

After years of intense competition, Airbus parent company EADS abandoned its bid on Monday for a lucrative U.S. Air Force contract to build 179 refueling jets at a value of $35 billion. German media had described it as the "deal of the century" for the European aerospace and defense giant. The bidding process had put Airbus in head-to-head competition against U.S. airplane-maker Boeing.

But on Monday, EADS' United States-based partner on the project, Northrop Grumman, withdrew its bid, saying the call for bids had been so tightly tailored that Boeing was the only company that could possibly land the contract. Airbus CEO Thomas Enders has accused the U.S. government of "prejudice".

The news didn't come as a total surprise. Three months ago, Northrop Grumman threatened to abandon the bid, saying the company wasn't being treated fairly. Officials said Boeing had been given access to Airbus' pricing offer and was able to adjust its own accordingly. Northrop-Grumman and Airbus originally won the order for the jets in 2008, but under protest from Boeing, the bid was overturned. The Pentagon, backing government auditors who claimed errors had been made in the original bid, called for a new bidding process.

"The current contract is clearly tailored to the competition's smaller and less capable aircraft," EADS' Enders said, according to German news agency DPA. "The bottom line is obvious: This process is no longer about the best tanker plane or fair competition." In 2009, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he could only live with a Boeing offer.