“Capital follows confidence” as defence courts private money
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
Pinnacle Airlines Corporation has released capacity and operational results for its Colgan Air subsidiary for December 2009 and for the complete calendar year.
Revenue passenger miles (RPMs) for December totalled 53,164,000, 1.9% up on the 52,175,000 reported for December 2008. Meanwhile capacity, in available seat miles (ASMs) was cut by 1.8% to 89,174,000 from 90,825,000, leading to a load factor increase of 2.2 percentage points (pp) to 59.6% from 57.4%.
Passengers carried by Colgan decreased by 1.5% to 211,636 from 214,816. The carrier flew 11,305 block hours during the month compared with 11,790 in December 2008, a drop of 4.1%.
RPMs for the whole of 2009 reached 641,069,000, an 11.3% increase on 2008’s figure of 576,147,000. ASMs were up by 3.3% to 1,095,485,000 from 1,060,221,000.
The annual load factor thus rose by 4.2 pp to 58.5% from 54.3%, with 2,701,971 passengers being carried during the year, a 6.7% increase from the 2,532,578 carried in 2008. Block hours flown totalled 138,166, compared with 152,890 in 2008, a 9.6% decrease.
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
The Department of National Defence expects initial contracts to deliver thousands of uncrewed systems, but has yet to establish the quantities, capability mix or deadline behind Ottawa’s promised tenfold expansion.
The company told Shephard that Ukraine is operating modified Protector weapon stations originally supplied for armoured vehicles, with human operators authorising engagements from hundreds of kilometres away.
A report from the Council on Geostrategy argues the UK should move away from a traditional balanced force and shift investment to naval, air and space capabilities, backed by a larger fleet of attack submarines and deeper AUKUS integration.
At its technology summit in London, attended by Shephard, Thales UK examined the importance of speed to delivery, the growing focus on cross-domain capabilities and how procurement reform could be crucial for future battlefield advantage.
Are all systems ready for the next mission? Have upgrades been applied? Are all assets aligned to deploy together, on time and fully prepared? In modern defence operations, readiness is no longer measured platform by platform. It is measured by how well people, assets, data and decisions move together — across land, sea and air.