Britain’s A330 Voyager FSTA: An Aerial Tanker Program - With a Difference
Sep 05, 2011 09:16 EDT
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Typhoon shortage delaying Voyager. (Dec 5/11)
Back in 2005, Great Britain was considering a public-private partnership to buy, equip, and operate the RAF’s future aerial tanker fleet, with a preferred consortium emerging at the time. The RAF would fly the 14 Airbus A330-MRTT aircraft on operational missions and receive absolute preferential access to the planes, while the contractor handled maintenance, received payment from the RAF on a per-use basis, and operated them as passenger or transport aircraft when the RAF didn’t need them.
The deal became politically controversial, and negotiations on the multi-billion pound, 27-year deal, charted new territory for both the government and private industry. Which may help to explain why a contract to move ahead on a “Private Financing Initiative” basis had yet to be issued, and procurement had yet to begin, over 7 years after the program began. In March 2008, however, Britain issued the world’s largest-ever Defence Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract. This FOCUS Article describes the current British fleet, the aircraft they chose, how the new fleet will compare, the innovative deal structure they’ve chosen, and the project’s key events…
- RAF Tankers: The Current Fleet
- A330-200 MRTT: The RAF’s Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft
- FSTA Program Details and Industrial Team
- PFI: The Art of the Deal
- UK FSTA: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
- Additional Readings
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