Better Late Than Never
 

On a positive note, they are low hour airframes and are coming into service soon(ish) so that's good. It says here.

Interesting, I hadn't heard the 'contracted out the mods to someone who made a hash of it' story before

Its still a damning indictment of poor MOD procurement practices and perceived remedies. We'll see how the 'remedy' works from now on...that's if MOD/MAA dare to be open about any incidents!

Rigga - While I agree procurement rules were poorly implemented (i.e. completely ignored), I found the references in the article to Fleetlands interesting. Given they announced in 1998 that they no longer regarded MoD(PE) as customers - that we could simply "**** off and pay industry" - I wonder why and when this policy changed, and how much it contributed to delays and cost overruns.