France Prepares A400M Gapfiller Plan

The French government is looking at gapfiller options to avoid a tactical airlift shortage resulting from delays with the Airbus Military A400M transport.

Options are being eyed and will be presented to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in coming months, says defense minister Herve Morin. France’s C-160 Transalls are aging and France believes it needs a gapfiller of some sort since it cannot stretch the service lives of the existing fleet until the A400M comes on-line - now four years later than expected.

Several options are being looked at, including using leased A330s to take up some air transport roles, says a French official traveling with Morin in the United States. Other options include working with European partners that perhaps could make the airlifter available, Morin tells the Center for Security and International Studies during his stay in Washington. Another is to try to draw on the C-17 fleet that a subset of NATO members are providing.

But Morin indicates he is not interested in backing away from the A400M, even though U.K. parliamentarians are raising the question of whether that would make sense. France is pushing Britain and Germany, in particular, to work with the Airbus Military industrial consortium to adapt the current contract and requirements to allow the A400M program to proceed. Ministerial representatives from the member countries, and the Occar European acquisition agency, are expected to meet this month to discuss a way ahead. Germany has been reluctant to change the terms of the existing fixed-price development contract.

Morin also used his visit in the United States to make a pitch for the Pentagon to buy the Airbus A330-based tanker offered by Northrop Grumman and EADS. The European product is simply better, he argues, noting that it won all the competition against its Boeing 767 rival, from Australia to Saudi Arabia.

He says, “It’s the first time we have a better product.”

Photo: EADS