Inspired by an ARC thread: What if USAF outsourced tankers to the airlines?

[AS.12]

One of the gotchas of the AirTanker contract is that the UK armed forces are commercially prohibited from performing or undertaking air-to-air refueling unless there are no AirTanker resources available.

Why MoD ever agreed to that I will never know, but on the occasions that the RAF has used Omega it's usually on deployment to / from USA where AirTanker is not obliged to provide resources.

Another example is returning from Red Flags in 2014 when KC-10s towed Tornados all the way back to Lossie which was 'permitted' since the first contact was outside AirTanker area of coverage.

Aha found the quote:

The Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract contains provisions to ensure that AirTanker has first call on all requirements for AAR for the RAF. The RAF is able to utilise AAR provided by other Nations, by commercial providers or another MOD owned aircraft but may have to make contractual payments to AirTanker if it does so.

http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2013/03/on-that-fsta-raf-voyager-exclusivity-thing/


Hopefully the US DoD would be less naive / shortsighted / daft than that, but I'm sure any commercial operators would be looking at the AirTanker contract and thinking 'that sounds like something we should try to include..'

[kitnut617]

How does AirTanker get paid? is it a flat rate for the term of the contract, or is it only per each hook-up performed ?  That would make more sense of their contract wording