South Korea goes Brazilian

Another win for Embraer’s C-390 tactical transport aircraft as South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) assigned budget for the 2nd large transport programme.

Rather unexpectedly, DAPA selected the Embraer C-390 Millennium as the winner of the programme, which probably is a blow for Lockheed Martin. That company thought it made the best chance with its bid for providing the C-130J, as the Dae Han Min Guk Gong Gun (RoKAF, Republic of Korea Air Force) is already operating several variants of the Hercules. The third contender was Airbus with its A400M Atlas transporter.

DAPA officials announced that part of the selection of the Millennium was due to Embraer’s favourable trade options, promising a large amount of work for Soth Korean sub-contractors. The total number of aircraft to be acquired is not known yet, however with the current budget assigned to the programme, a maximum of three aircraft is expected for the moment.

South Korea is the first Asian operator and the seventh nation to select the C-390 after Brazil, Portugal, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria and the Czech Republic. According to Embraer, talks for possible future acquisitions are underway with Sweden, Greece, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Credit image: EMBRAER