2024-03-18 05:00:00
The Caracal will not land in the United Arab Emirates… According to corroborating sources, Abu Dhabi sent a letter approximately three weeks ago to Airbus Helicopters to request the cancellation of the contract, which was nevertheless put into force in June 2022. Contacted by La Tribune, the Airbus subsidiary confirmed that “the contract is in force”. And to add: “we do not comment on the nature and content of the discussions we have with our customers”.
For the Marignane manufacturer, this is a hard blow even if this outcome was increasingly possible, even inevitable, in recent months. For several months, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) put great pressure on the European manufacturer to negotiate downward the amount of the contract for the sale of 12 Caracal tactical transport helicopters signed in December 2021. A contract estimated at at the time between 750 and 800 million euros.
Requirements
According to our information, the UAE, which is an important customer for Airbus Helicopters, wanted to reduce the amount of the contract to 620 million euros. The UAE’s demands went beyond a simple financial rebate. Known to be particularly demanding in terms of negotiations, they also wanted Airbus Helicopters to deliver faster, increase the duration of support by ten years and transfer more technologies. Finally, they favored the integration on the Caracal of the Israeli Spike missile or a missile from the Emirati group Halcon.
Requirements with which the European manufacturer might not comply for reasons of profitability. For a long time, Airbus Helicopters believed it would emerge from this quagmire. This will not be the case even if it now offers NH90s in Abu Dhabi, manufactured in cooperation with Leonardo and the Dutch Fokker as part of the company NHIndustries.
Bruno Even mightn’t do anything
To save this contract, Airbus Helicopters CEO Bruno Even was personally involved in the negotiations. In an interview given to La Tribune during the Dubai show (November 13-17), he considered that “its role is to maintain a strategic relationship with the United Arab Emirates, to ensure that we know how to respond to requests under conditions that remain favorable for each party and, finally, to be able to execute the Caracal contract at its end”.
“We have known the UAE customer for over 40 years. He flies on many Airbus Helicopters helicopters. The Caracal contract has a strategic dimension because it is an opportunity for the UAE client, as for us, to reaffirm our partnership for future years,” Bruno Even explained at the time.
For their part, the UAE had found a means of putting pressure on Airbus Helicopters by negotiating with the South Korean KAI the purchase of the Surion helicopter, developed in the 2000s in partnership… with Eurocopter, which has since become Airbus Helicopters.
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