Airbus Defence and Space has signed a long-term Global Support Service contract for the A400M airlifter with the UK, France and Spain.

The new agreement, effective 1 December, runs as a first step for two years and follows previously signed contracts which provided support for France and UK in their early years of operation of the A400M. It additionally forms the basis of support for Spain, which accepted its first aircraft on 1 December.

This first phase of the agreement paves the way for any other OCCAR nation to join later and benefit from this package as well as additional new services currently under development.

Under the new arrangement, the three nations will benefit from a spares pool, technical and engineering support, maintenance and flight operations services.

According to Airbus DS, customer nations will see numerous benefits from the sharing of these resources and assets in a common central services operation including substantial cost savings, increased efficiency of service, and greater flexibility to meet their specific operational requirements.

The contract was awarded by the UK’s Defence Equipment & Support Agency (DE&S), the French Direction générale de l’armement (DGA) and Spain’s Direccion General de Armamento y Material (DGAM) through the OCCAR international programme management organization.