France is increasing the availability on the market of some models of military helicopters such as the Fennec, the Cougar, the Panther and the Tiger of Airbus Helicopters. This is what emerges from the monitoring of the Direction de la Maintenance Aéronautique (Dmae), created in April 2018, which is managing the orders through so-called verticalized contracts.

The availability of the Tiger attack aircraft alone in 2021 increased by 35%: it went from 18 in 2018 to 28 (out of 67 commissioned) produced in December last year. Availability increased by 8 points between 2017 (27%) and 2021 (35%). On see a similar trend for Cougar aircraft, used mainly by special forces, and Fennec, used for instrument flight training: there are respectively 5 and 18 available.

In general the maintenance service has also improved. For Paris this is a success for the Dmae. According to the Army General Staff the vertical contracts are only now beginning to produce their effects in terms of availability.