Aircraft

BAE Systems has been awarded a £34 million-plus ($67m) contract to provide supply chain support for seven items of Harrier GR.Mk 9 avionics equipment until 2014, building on the existing Mech 1A lite contract, a ten-year availability contract for the provision of Harrier component spares and repairs.
BAE Systems is moving towards a total through-life Harrier platform availability contract (HPAC), fulfilling the IPT’s vision of achieving availability contracting at the platform level. Though such contracts can offer dramatic reductions in support costs, the implications for service manpower numbers are considerable, and many believe that genuinely smart procurement would dictate a deliberate retention of service engineering capabilities in order to be able to offer genuine competition.