There seems to be a lot of needless bickering on this thread. As has already been stated, the RAF AT fleet does a fantastic job with the hand it has been dealt (ie regulation, aging fleet, DAS requirements), but I have to agree that it could learn from the civil aviation industry.
Increased use of charter aircraft could give 216 a bit of breathing space, and ease the (significant) burden on 99 Sqn when things do go wrong. I speak as someone who returned home the best part of a week late immediately before Christmas, but can still appreciate the impossible task gifted to Brize when the Tristar was grounded.
Having said that, I think the use of charters needs to be more elegantly sourced. OAG or whatever they are called had good service, but it did seem that they needed a few stones thrown their way to get them airborne and on task.
There are several solutions to this conundrum. Firstly, the RAF bites the bullet and leases until the A330 enters service (and possibly beyond, as I am not completely convinced that the numbers they are quoting have the critical mass of capacity and flexibility to replace the Tristar and VC10). I am sure GECAS would love to hear from them.
The leased/charter aircraft could operate to and from a MOB in the ME (ie Minhad) freeing up the Tristar to shuttle to/from KAF. C130/C17 could also provide throughput into the strat system if required.
This solves the DAS problem, though if I had the time/money I would be looking very closely at developing a DAS equipped lease/charter fleet (other uses are UN work, extra capacity for El Al etc - there would not be a shortage of work).
Failing this, the RAF needs to source a reliable, yet cheap, charter partner and give them preferred status and a regular dripfeed of tasking. Their problems seem to come when they scrabble around at short notice looking for capacity.
Yes, all of this costs money. However, if we send our servicepeople into harms way, we owe it to them to get them home within a prescribed time period. They also need to have faith in this principle - and at present they don't. Getting people home on time should not be a matter of luck.
As a final point, none of this should detract from the fine work done by the RAF AT fleet. Your fleet are knackered, over regulated and your margin for error far to fine - but despite this, you have done a fantastic job for approaching 10 years (including Iraq).
411A is bombastic, and is trying to sell you something. Therefore anything he says needs a hefty pinch of salt. But you shouldnt dismiss everything he says because of it. Some, not all, of his points have merit.