- UK A400M availability appears to be about 45% (around 10 of 22 aircraft daily)
- £190m Airbus deal aims to raise this to 13 aircraft/day by 2027
- Even then, it remains below the ~70% availability seen in 2022
The UK Government appears to have revealed its A400M transport fleet has been operating at a 45% availability rate, following the award of a contract to manufacturer Airbus to increase the number of aircraft available daily from 10 to 13 by the end of 2027.
Currently, the UK operates a fleet of 22 A400M Atlas transport aircraft, which is a cornerstone of the country’s air mobility capability, supporting operations ranging from humanitarian relief to rapid troop deployment.
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The A400M is the RAF’s most numerous airborne mobility capability following the retirement from service of the 14 C-130 tactical transporters from 2023, with the force augmented by eight larger C-17 strategic airlifters.
As stated in a 1 October release, the UK Government outlined that a planned 30% increase in availability would boost the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) ability to “conduct global operations” under a £190m ($250m) contract between the UK Ministry of Defence and manufacturer Airbus.
Although the figures indicate an uptick in A400 availability, the increase will still not return it to 2022 levels, when the RAF’s fleet saw up to 70% of the aircraft as operationally ready on a daily basis between March 2021 and September 2022, as revealed by Airforce Technology at the time.
By contrast, availability during the same period for the then in-service C-130J and current C-17 fleets as being around 71% and 75–88% respectively.
In 2022, the RAF operated 20 A400 aircraft, rising to 21 in 2023 and 22 in 2024 as the order was completed.
It is not known what factors appear to have contributed to such a significant drop in RAF A400 availability, although the retirement of the C-130 fleet in 2023 occurred between the 2022 figure and the present day.
At the time of publishing, the UK MoD had not responded for comment.
RAF A400M: availability background
In 2022, a senior official at Airbus told the UK Defence Committee that A400M availability had seen some “difficulty” that summer, but that the platform had later recovered.
It was widely reported that the aircraft had gearbox and engine component issues that forced a lower availability rate for the platform than originally envisaged. To solve this issue, Airbus had introduced a so-called ‘Mod Pack 2’ to the fleet.
At the time it was unclear by what range availability rates differed among UK A400Ms from those fitted with Mod Pack 2 and ‘non-first line’ platforms still awaiting rectification, nor the timescale required to update the original aircraft.
The UK MoD’s 2022-2032 Equipment Plan – a document since axed in favour of the opaque Defence Investment Plan – reaffirmed the suggestion that the retirement of the C-130J would free up resources to procure additional A400 aircraft.
However, according to the National Audit Office’s report into the Equipment Plan, released the same day, an option to purchase additional A400M aircraft was assessed as ‘unaffordable’.
