Three More Atlas, and a Hole the Size of a Hercules Fleet
By Mark Allatt, UK Defence First
Executive summary
On 1 October the Ministry of Defence announced a £190 million extension of Airbus’s support contract for the Royal Air Force’s A400M Atlas, and called it a 30 per cent boost to tactical and strategic airlift. The arithmetic is meaner. Fully mission-capable aircraft are to rise from ten a day to thirteen by the end of 2027, out of a fleet of twenty-two. That is a move from 45 per cent availability to 59 per cent, still below the rate the same fleet managed in 2022, and it does not replace the fourteen C-130J Hercules withdrawn in June 2023, years before the out-of-service date set in 2015. Twelve of those aircraft are being refurbished for Türkiye. UK Defence First has argued that tactical airlift must be rebuilt, not marginally improved: a dedicated smaller fleet for the tasks Atlas does poorly, spares and crews funded so availability matches what the Hercules and the C-17 already demonstrated, and an end to counting a support contract as a capability increase. Three extra aircraft a day in fifteen months’ time is not that rebuild.
On Wednesday the Ministry of Defence announced that Airbus will keep maintaining the Atlas fleet at RAF Brize Norton until April 2029, under a 31-month extension worth £190 million, with an option of a further year. More than 350 jobs are sustained, over 240 of them Airbus and 110 with primary sub-contractors. The operational claim, repeated by the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, is that mission-capable aircraft will rise from ten a day to thirteen by the end of 2027. The department’s own headline called this a boost to Britain’s air defence. It is not. Atlas does not shoot anything down. It carries troops, vehicles and stores. The slip is small. The habit it reveals is not.
What ten and thirteen actually mean
The Royal Air Force owns twenty-two A400M Atlas, the last delivered in 2024, normally based at Brize Norton and currently dispersed to Boscombe Down while the home runway is resurfaced. Ten fully mission-capable aircraft a day is 45 per cent of the fleet. Thirteen is 59 per cent. Nine airframes will still be unavailable on an average day even if the contract delivers, and the promise is an end-of-2027 target, not a fleet available this week. Between March 2021 and September 2022 the Atlas force, then twenty aircraft, managed up to 70 per cent daily availability. The new deal does not get the larger fleet back to the rate the smaller one already achieved. In the same period the C-130J force was at about 71 per cent and the eight C-17 Globemasters at 75 to 88 per cent. The aircraft that worked have been retired or left to carry the strategic load. The aircraft that did not are being given a support contract and a press release.
Airbus and the Ministry are entitled to point out that availability has improved since the worst of the Atlas entry into service, and that the work at Brize Norton is what keeps aircraft flying. UK Defence First does not dispute the need for the contract. A fleet without a funded support line is a fleet in a hangar. The objection is to the presentation. A 30 per cent rise on a low base is three aircraft. It is being briefed as a strengthening of NATO commitments. Those commitments did not shrink when the Hercules left.
The fleet that was sold
The C-130J was the RAF’s tactical airlifter for a generation: short strips, low-level routes, special forces, and the routine business of moving a company without tying up a strategic aircraft. The 2015 defence review set an out-of-service date of 2035. The 2021 Integrated Review brought that forward by twelve years. The last Hercules sortie in RAF service was flown in June 2023. Fourteen aircraft were still in the force at the end. They were not worn out. They were sold.
Twelve of the stretched C-130J-30s have gone to Türkiye. Ankara said on 1 October - the same day as the Atlas announcement - that the first two will be delivered in December once Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge finishes the overhaul. The sale and the work were put by the British government at more than £550 million. Three further airframes are in advanced talks for sale. An ally is rebuilding the middle of its airlift fleet with aircraft Britain decided it no longer required. Türkiye operates both types, and has just been reminded why the smaller one exists: its older C-130s were grounded after a crash in November 2025, and the A400M could not cover every task the Hercules had been doing.
That is the contrast. Britain has twenty-two Atlas and eight C-17s. On a good day in 2027 it hopes to have thirteen Atlas ready. Before June 2023 it also had a Hercules force that, on its own availability, could put about ten tactical aircraft in the air. Atlas lifts more - a 37-tonne payload, rising towards 40, and 116 troops - and it flies further. It is also larger, thirstier, and less suited to the short strip and the special-forces profile that justified keeping a Hercules squadron. Clearing Atlas for parts of that role has taken years. A press release about three more airframes does not close the gap.
What should be done
UK Defence First has argued, across its writing on readiness, that ambition is not being matched by action, and that Britain must be able to act alone and to supply its own forces. The airlift version of that argument is straightforward, and it has not changed because a support contract has been extended.
First, stop counting availability as capacity. Thirteen Atlas are not a tactical airlift fleet. They are a fraction of a hybrid already doing the work of two types. Any statement of air mobility should publish the number of aircraft ready each day, and set it against the tasks, not against last year’s poor figure. Second, fund the rate, not the headline. The 2022 Atlas fleet showed that 70 per cent was achievable. Thirteen out of twenty-two is a contractual floor dressed as a transformation. Spares and people are the constraint, as they are for the ships alongside at Portsmouth and Devonport.
Third, replace what was sold. UK Defence First’s position is that the premature withdrawal of the Hercules should be rectified with a dedicated tactical fleet, not by asking Atlas to be a Hercules. That means a smaller airlifter - a new C-130J buy, or an equivalent that can use a short strip and carry a special-forces task without an Atlas-sized footprint - crewed and supported in Britain. The industrial base overhauling the retired aircraft for Türkiye at Cambridge is the base that could have kept a British squadron flying. Fourth, spend at the level the task requires. A minimum of 5 per cent of national income on defence and security is the figure UK Defence First has set. Airlift is one of the cheaper ways to make the rest of the force usable. A brigade that cannot be moved, and a special-forces squadron that cannot be inserted, are not capabilities.
The Atlas is a good aircraft, and the people at Brize Norton keeping it flying deserve a contract that lasts. They do not deserve to have three extra airframes briefed as the restoration of a fleet Britain sold. Türkiye will take delivery of the first of those aircraft in December. The RAF will still be waiting, at the end of 2027, for thirteen Atlas on a good day.