Airbus A400M for Luxembourg and Belgium Armed Forces

On 7 October 2020, Minister of Defence François Bausch and the new Chief of Staff General Steve Thull formally welcomed the new Airbus A400M transport aircraft for the Luxembourg Armed Forces at LuxembourgFindel main airport.

In 2001, the Belgian and Luxembourg governments had formalised procurement of eight Airbus A400M aircraft, one for Luxembourg and seven for Belgium. All eight aircraft will be based Melsbroek Air Base in Belgium with the Belgian 15th Wing. The Luxembourg Armed Forces will also post crew members for the two-national A400M fleets; the A400Ms replacing the aging Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules fleet.

The A400M can land and take off using a short runway and can operate from difficult terrain, including a beach or from

grass runways. The aircraft can be used for military as well as humanitarian purposes, according to the new Chief of Staff of the Luxembourg Armed Forces, Steve Thull, "In any event, it can fly people as far as to Mali as its operational range is larger than the current C-130 Hercules. Above all, it equips us to expand our transport capacity.”

The estimated cost of the A400M project is around 420 million euros which includes initial procurement and maintenance charges. Minister of Defence François Bausch stated, “This is a lot of money, but it would be worth it, because the aircraft could be lent to other Europeans to carry out both defence as well as civil operations. Then we have the MRTT (Multi-Role Tanker & Transport) programme, where we've been discussing with other European countries, on sharing costs."

The Airbus A400M is the first Luxembourgian military aircraft since 1968 at that time, three Piper PA-18 Super Cubs were retired from service. The Luxembourg Armed Forces received two Eurocopter H145 helicopters in 2019.