Boeing leads UK Poseidon maintenance and training effort

8th July 2021 - 09:47 GMT | by The Shephard News Team

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The MoD awarded Boeing Defence UK a contract to head up maintenance and training services for the RAF fleet of Poseidon MRA Mk.1 aircraft. (Photo: UK MoD/Crown Copyright)

£233.5 million contract boosts the RAF submarine-hunter fleet, says MoD.

The UK MoD announced on 8 July that it has signed a contract worth £233.5 million ($322 million) for Boeing Defence UK to maintain and support the RAF fleet of nine Poseidon P-8A maritime patrol aircraft (MPA).

Additionally, the five-year deal features ‘a comprehensive training package for aircraft crews’, the MoD noted in a statement. Shephard reported in January 2021 that Boeing would select CAE for the training service support contract.

This deal creates 153 jobs in the UK, primarily at RAF Lossiemouth where five Poseidons are currently based (the remaining four are to arrive by November 2021, according to Shephard Defence Insight).

Malcolm French, DE&S P-8A Poseidon team leader at MoD Defence Equipment & Support, said the contract ‘helps enable the full range of capability that Poseidon brings to be realised, sees our modern aircraft fully supported, and our personnel being trained from state-of-the-art facilities’.

In July 2016, the UK government announced the nine-aircraft P-8A order for the RAF. In August 2018, the RAF announced that the aircraft will be officially designated Poseidon MRA Mk.1.

RAF Lossiemouth includes a £100 million purpose-built facility for Poseidon, opened in September 2020, and the base also underwent an upgrade of its runway and other infrastructure.

‘It will be the future home of the UK’s fleet of Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning surveillance aircraft,’ the MoD added.