WOW! it was such a balls up that the MoD were just lucky enough to book airline seats for a whole det the day before they were due to fly.... er, no... block seat booking with an airline = pre planned. The MoD have a copy of available aircraft. The MoD look at the flight requirements and select wether to use Voyager or Charter in based on aircraft available. This process happens months in advance. If you're saying Voyager couldnt deliver, I suspect it was a last minute task and the 8 aircraft were all busy on other tasks, as determined by DSCOM. Otherwise, the charter/seat bookings would have been pre planned by the controlling authority (cost is also considered, a whole aircraft or a few seats). Air Tanker have litte control about where they fly to, it's all decided by the MoD and Air Tanker offer whats available. If it was a c*ck up, 99% it would be an MoD c*ck up for not checking the availability against requirement. (yeah, I did spend 10 years at Abbey Wood doing this way before Voyager was on the cards)
Last edited by iko wapi choo; 24th Jun 2014 at 22:23.