March 12 (Reuters) - Boeing ( BA ) has to fix ongoing

problems with its KC-46 aerial refueling tanker before the

United States orders more, U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff

Gen. John Lamontagne told lawmakers during a March 4 hearing.

The general did not specify which problems could hold up a

follow-on contract to the existing one for 183 tankers.

"We are working through a couple of issues with the

contractor, and we are not going to get a new contract for

another 75 KC-46s until we work through some of those

deficiencies," Lamontagne told a subcommittee of the Senate

Armed Services Committee.

A decision on the contract is likely two years away, he

said, adding that he is "confident that a good plan is in place"

to resolve the issues next year.

Boeing ( BA ) and the Air Force have already spent years trying to fix

problems with the KC-46's refueling boom and the visual system

that the boom operator uses to watch the boom and move it during

refueling. Last year, deliveries were temporarily paused after

cracks were found in a handful of new tankers.

The Air Force ordered the tanker, which is based on Boeing's ( BA )

commercial 767, to begin replacing its fleet of aging KC-135

tankers, which were built in the 1950s and early 1960s. The

company has already delivered more than 100 of the tankers. Last

November, the Air Force committed to the next block of 15

tankers in the current contract.

Several KC-46s have been supporting US air strikes on Iran,

based on flight records.

A Boeing ( BA ) spokesperson on Thursday declined to comment and

referred to CEO Kelly Ortberg's statements on the program during

a Jan. 27 call discussing fourth quarter earnings with

investment analysts.

"It is taking us more resources to make the deliveries,"

Ortberg said. "We delivered 14 tankers in 2025, and we are

planning to deliver 19 in 2026. And we made the conscious

decision that we needed to keep resources at a higher level to

assure that we make those deliveries on time."

The planemaker took a $565 million charge in its fourth quarter

earnings. The company has lost more than $7 billion on the

fixed-cost program.

"Obviously, this has been a bad contract for the last

decade, this existing contract," he said.

When Boeing ( BA ) bids on the next contract, it will revise its

pricing to ensure "we can make money" on the program, he said.

(Reporting by Dan Catchpole in Seattle; Editing by Chizu

Nomiyama .)