The Strange Case of the New Italian Tankers

The search for the new tanker for the Italian Air Force can indeed be described as a real soap opera.

With the issuance of a contract determination, the process of acquiring 6 new refueling aircraft for the Italian Air Force has officially begun (again), with a total value of 1.4 billion euros. The document does not specify the aircraft model, although it states that “the requirement can be met through a restricted tender procedure in accordance with Articles 16 and 17 of Legislative Decree 208/2011”. A restricted procedure means that only economic operators invited by the contracting authorities can submit an offer.

This could lead to two different options: the acquisition of the Airbus A-330 MRTT (according to press sources, this is the preferred solution of the Air Force) or maintaining the original choice to purchase 6 new KC-46 PEGASUS (KC-767B), but this time without the trade-in of the 4 KC-767As currently in service (which is not mentioned in the determination). This would justify a new contract determination.

We call it a soap opera because at the end of June, the program launched in November 2022 to purchase 6 KC-46 PEGASUS (KC-767B) from Boeing, with the trade-in of the 4 KC-767As in service with the Air Force, was canceled, justifying the cancellation with the need to use the 1.2 billion euros allocated for more urgent needs (Itamilradar, 2024). Just over a month later, it seems that the urgent needs are no longer present (indeed, the order amount has risen to 1.4 billion).

Stay tuned for the next chapter in the saga.