13. January 2015

Commander EATC visits OCCAR-EA

The Commander of the European Air Transport Command (EATC), Major General Christian Badia, visited OCCAR Director Tim Rowntree on 13 January 2015. It was his first visit to the OCCAR-EA headquarters since Major General Badia took over the command of EATC in July 2014.

The Commander EATC and the OCCAR Director primarily discussed the A400M Programme and the related coordination of EATC and OCCAR work. The joint aim is to enable the A400M nations to obtain the best possible airlift capabilities and significant cost savings through putting in place a common/global long term support solution, a common aircraft configuration, common capability clearances and taking maximum benefit from shared usage of interoperable A400M within EATC. 

OCCAR, as the contracting authority for the A400M Programme, manages on behalf of the A400M Programme Participating States the Development, the Production and common In-Service Support elements of A400M. Currently, six A400M aircraft are in service in France, two in Turkey and one each in Germany and the UK.

EATC will have around 80 A400M aircraft, assigned by the A400M user nations, under its operational control in 2020. First six A400M aircraft are already under operational control of EATC and have successfully performed logistic flight missions.