Australian buyback begins to ease NH90 supply chain woes

Having cancelled its MRH90 programme, Australia sold 4,000 spare parts to NHI for use by the wider international NH90 consortium. (Commonwealth of Australia)

The buyback of spare parts from Australia's cancelled fleet of NHIndustries (NHI) MRH90 ‘Taipan' helicopters is beginning to have an effect on the shortage of spare parts across the wider international NH90 programme.

Speaking to Janes and other defence media at the Marignane site of chief stakeholder Airbus Helicopters, consortium president Axel Aloccio said that the first spare parts recovered from Australia's fleet of 45 helicopters are now finding their way into the wider supply chain.

“We have bought about 4,000 parts from Australia, and have now completed the transaction with Australia with the first physical transfers of parts from Australia to Europe starting in the last three to four weeks,” Aloccio said on 8 October. “We have already received around 300-or-so parts from Australia, and have begun the flow to reinject these into our support system, by selling them to some nations at a discounted price those used parts and keeping the rest at NHI to feed the standard exchange programme that we have now introduced.”

Aloccio declined to say how much NHI paid for the Australian parts.

Safety stock

The Australian buyback is part of a wider effort by NHI and its constituent companies – Airbus, Leonardo, and Fokker – to establish a ‘safety stock' of parts for the international fleet of NH90 Tactical Transport Helicopter (TTH) and NH90 NATO Frigate Helicopter (NFH) platforms.