Selective quoting by Bloomberg from a round table briefing is a tad on the naughty side. The full IHS Jane's quote from the meeting is :
UK officials are pleased with the current state of F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter acquisition and they are now starting to shift their focus to the costs of operating and maintaining the aircraft.
“We are very pleased with the development of the aircraft,” UK Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Defence Stephen Lovegrove said on 27 March during a media roundtable discussion of UK defence programmes and policies.
“It’s doing everything we hoped it would do,” he said. “We are pleased to see the cost of acquisition coming down in line with the way we assumed it would.”
He added that now “the next area of intense interest is the sustainment and operational cost of the aircraft.”
He and other military officials are constantly being asked by members of Parliament what those potential costs are going to be for the 138 aircraft. “They are frustrated when I say at the moment no one’s entirely sure,” he said.
Historically, he said, the United Kingdom has been “OK at buying stuff”, but it has failed at sustaining or operating what it acquires in an affordable way. “We need to work very, very, very hard on that.”
He noted the United Kingdom will be operating and sustaining the aircraft until 2048. “We’ve got headroom in the programme,” he said. “But there is a degree of uncertainty.”
That uncertainty exists, he said, for all of the countries in the F-35 acquisition programme.
Doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory, but the sky ain't falling either....