The British Royal Air Force's A400M Atlas transport aircraft fleet is to be supported by Airbus Defence and Space in a £410 million ($504 million) deal announced Jan 5.

The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded Airbus a £410 million contract to support the A400M Atlas transport aircraft for the next 10 years, and also has agreed a separate, £63 million spare parts agreement with France and Spain.

The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded Airbus a £410 million contract to support the A400M Atlas transport aircraft for the next 10 years, and also has agreed a separate, £63 million spare parts agreement with France and Spain.

The Defence Equipment and Support arm of Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement that the contract will secure maintenance, upgrade and repair support of the planned 22-strong fleet of Airbus-built aircraft through 2026.

The work will take place at the RAF’s air transport hub at Brize Norton where a £62 million hanger capable of housing three Atlas aircraft at one go is on schedule to be fully equipped in the next few months.

The RAF fleet currently stands at 14 A400Ms following the delivery of two aircraft at the end of last year. The fleet is scheduled to reach 22 in 2019 and be the backbone of the RAF’s air-transport capability alongside smaller numbers of Boeing C-17 and Lockheed Martin C-130J aircraft.

The A400M is the latest addition to the RAF’s tactical airlifter capability and can carry up to 37 tons of payload over a range of 2,000 nautical miles. It is able to deploy troops and equipment between and within theatres of operation either by parachute or by landing on short, potentially unprepared airstrips.

Atlas can also carry armored vehicles, allowing a deploying force to arrive ready to fight. For humanitarian roles, it is capable of deploying mobile cranes, excavators and large dump trucks for disaster relief operations– for example clearing earthquake sites.

Announcement of the contract follows on the heels of a deal late last year adding Spain to an Anglo-French global support service agreement managed by the European Organization for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) to pool spares and technical support, which has been running for the past two years.