THE Royal Air Force faces fresh delays to the delivery of much-needed new transport aircraft after EADS, the parent company of Airbus, said it did not know when the first of the planes would be ready and wanted to renegotiate its contract to build them.

EADS’s A400M aircraft was planned as a replacement for the Hercules, the transport workhorse of air forces worldwide. The RAF has bought 25 A400Ms to replace its ageing Hercules fleet. The new planes were to arrive in 2010, but may not now be delivered until 2012 or later.

The A400M, a four-engine turbo-prop, has been plagued by delays and cost overruns since its inception, but Friday’s announcement is a serious blow. EADS said it would not now deliver the first aircraft until three years after the maiden flight. No date has yet been set for this, but sources at Airbus say it should take place in September.

EADS said it had proposed to European governments that are buying the planes “a new programme approach . . . with the aim to find a way forward for this programme”.

Analysts say EADS wants to delay production until it is confident the aircraft is technically sound. It also wants to revisit some of the performance characteristics demanded by the European air forces that are buying it, with some sources at the company saying that the cost of achieving them would be prohibitive.

The new delays could prove costly to EADS, which has had to absorb multi-billion-euro bills from delays to its flagship Airbus A380 superjumbo. The company has already provided €1.7 billion (£1.5 billion) against delays to the A400M, most of which it said were related to the aircraft’s engine and control software.

Analysts think that EADS could now be forced into making provisions of billions more against the programme – unless it is able to renegotiate the contract with the client governments.

Late delivery of the plane will mean a headache for the RAF. Its current transport fleet has been stretched by the demands of its campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In July the Commons public accounts committee warned that there were “significant risks” of a shortage of transport aircraft because of the age of the Hercules fleet and delays to its replacement.

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