Set up a direct airline route between Seoul and Abu Dhabi. That’s what the government of the UAE has added as a condition for ”purchasing” 40 T-50 trainers. According to an exclusive report by mbn, the ROK government has indicated that it will agree to the condition. However considering that the competition, according to mbn, had already set up a direct Italy(Rome, Milan?) to Abu Dhabi route last October, and that there are no announcements of the winner, the new route probably won’t lead to an automatic selection of the T-50, by the UAE. On the other hand, not agreeing to the new route won’t help KAI’s position during the bidding process, either.
On a side note, LMB requested that the UAE government give the T-50, “special consideration”, in which the UAE ambassador responded that he “will endeavor for the selection of the T-50 as a preferred bidder.”
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Interesting… there’s been no news of this here in the Emirates.
I’m not surprised they want a route to Abu Dhabi. UAE is increasingly trying to get people to fly into Abu Dhabi over Dubai if you’re just passing through because Dubai gets way more traffic than it can handle. In Abu Dhabi I waited at immigration for less than 10 minutes, and in Dubai I waited an hour and 40 minutes, as an example.
Etihad, the flag carrier of the UAE, was spurned for a port at Incheon because its rival, Emirates, has an agreement with Korean Air.
That pissed off the emiratis a great deal, considering that they had already gone through the trouble of hiring Korean flight attendants.
What is lost in this discussion is that arguably the T-50 is a 70% American plane. Yes, given the parts and intellectual property, if the plane was exported to the US, the plane could well be rationalized to be 70% US content.
And the word within the defense industry is that since the plane is essentially a Lockheed product, the US Embassy staff are heavily involved in pushing the sale of the planes to the UAE.
It’s not only lost in this discussion, but it’s also lost in the Korean media, and Korean discussion boards.
On a side note, there was a special broadcast on Korean TV, on the occasion of the rollout of the T-50. The special recreated a ROKAF meeting which was discussing whether the ROKAF should buy an existing airframe or develop a new trainer domestically. According to the special, older officers called for buying an existing airframe, while the younger ones called for a domestic developed trainer in order to develop the national aerospace industry and secure “independence.” Ironically, the domestically developed trainer that resulted from the meeting is, according to Tom, 70% American.