UAE decides against Typhoon

 

Official Eurofighter logo

The United Arab Emirates has chosen not to purchase Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft despite high-level talks between UK and UAE officials, according to BAE Systems.
 

An RAF Typhoon in flight

“The UAE have advised that they have elected not to proceed with these proposals at this time,” says a 19 December media release from BAE.

“BAE Systems and the UK government have been in discussions with the government of the United Arab Emirates regarding a range of defence and security capabilities, including the potential supply of Typhoon aircraft,” BAE adds.

Typhoon was seen as a challenge to France’s Dassault, which for years has been seeking to sell its Rafale fighter to the UAE.
 

German ground crew mount an IRIS-T to a Eurofighter

But two years ago on the day before the Dubai air show, news broke that the UAE had asked the Eurofighter consortium to submit a proposal.

BAE’s media release says “all parties have invested significant effort in drawing up Typhoon proposals for the UAE.”

“Recognising the risk, scale and complexity of such a transaction, the group had not built this prospect into its planning assumptions,” it adds.