Airbus's parent company, EADS, and its US partner Northrop Grumman dropped a joint bid for the contract earlier in March as the companies alleged that the Pentagon's requirements were skewed in favour of US aerospace giant Airbus.

"The Pentagon has asked us to decide if we would like to participate, but this time as the main contractor," Airbus chief executive Thomas Enders told the Financial Times Deutschland. "It is a fundamental difference."

Last week EADS asked the Pentagon to extend the May 10 deadline for bids by 90 days, and the US Defence Department indicated that it would welcome a new offer from the European aircraft maker.

"The decision to participate or not will be made in the next two to three weeks," Enders said.

"It will be particularly difficult to make a competitive offer. We always need a reliable American partner and a competent team to make an offer," he said.

The Northrop-EADS withdrawal from the race triggered an uproar in Europe, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel accusing Washington of bias in favour of the all-American Boeing plane.

The team had won the contract in February 2008, but the deal was cancelled after a successful Boeing appeal to the investigative arm of Congress.

In 2003 the Pentagon awarded a contract to Boeing but later suspended it after an ethics scandal involving a company executive and an Air Force official. The Air Force official was later convicted of criminal conspiracy.

The decision by Northrop and EADS to pull out of the bidding opened the door for Boeing to win the 35-billion-dollar (26-billion-euro) contract to supply 179 tanker planes.

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