Where is the news story here??
We have been Xmas-treeing aircraft for years. Tornadoes, harriers, pumas, tucanos, wessex, chinooks etc etc.
Don't disagree Jayteeto, the 'difference is that we usually like to get a few hours on the clock before we start cannibalising the assets. In this case, they have been flown from manufacturer's delivery to the storage facility, placed in long pres and stripped.
The double burden of cannibalisation is a well documented facet of maintenance, for Apache we have not only chosen to ignore the additional servicing costs, but also the deliberate disabling of a GBP 30M asset as it becomes another hangar queen with effectively zero flying hours.