BAE Systems has been awarded a four-year £42 million contract from the UK Ministry of Defence for the support of the Command Support Air Transport (CSAT) fleet of four BAe 146 jetliners.

The contract commenced on March 1, 2018 and runs until 2022. There are options in the contract for extensions of one or two years. If the two-year extension is taken up, the contract value will increase to £60 million.

The fleet is operated by 32 (The Royal) Squadron from RAF Northolt in West London.

Increased availability

The BAE Systems Regional Aircraft team joined with Serco to win the contract through a competitive tender process. The BAE Systems-led team has promised to deliver a 20% increase in aircraft availability for a reduced operational cost.

The new agreement is availability-based, which includes maintenance of airframe, engines, avionics and electrical; provision of spares and total supply chain management; the management of Government Furnished Assets; and interior aircraft cleaning and maintenance.

Serco, which had provided support at RAF Northolt for over 20 years, will be responsible for all maintenance aspects of the contract, including airframe, engines, avionics and electrical, and interior aircraft cleaning and maintenance. Through its experienced resource at RAF Northolt, Serco will also provide a pool of sponsored reserves to support the aircraft when deployed on operations outside the UK.

Under the availability element of the contract the BAE Systems-led team will ensure delivery of three out of the four aircraft to be available for tasking at 7am on weekdays and two of the four aircraft available at 7am at weekends.

Mr Sean McGovern, Managing Director of BAE Systems Regional Aircraft said: “Working with our partner Serco, we aim to deliver a first-class service to our customer to reduce costs, and give clearer visibility of our performance. We have also worked closely with our colleagues from BAE Systems Air sector to learn from their Typhoon, Tornado and Hawk availability contracts for the Royal Air Force in order to provide the best possible service to our customer.”

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