NHI confident of saving Swedish NH90 programme, as Norway settles dispute

A Swedish NH90 helicopter is seen here. While Sweden is poised to join its Norwegian neighbour in quitting the NH90 programme, NHI is confident that it can still salvage the programme. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)

The NHIndustries (NHI) consortium behind the NH90 helicopter remains confident of saving the programme in Sweden, at the same time as its Nordic neighbour Norway has finalised its exit.

The president of NHI, Axel Aloccio, recently told Janes and other defence media that the Swedish programme remains salvageable despite their having already ordered Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters to seemingly replace a portion of them. His assertion came just days before NHI and the Norwegian government settled on 3 November their financial dispute over that country's cancelled programme.

“Sweden is still flying its 18 NH90s. They are considering what they want to do with their fleet, and this is [an analysis] that has been ongoing for several years, and we are in regular contact with them to see where they are in their analysis,” Aloccio said during a mid-October media event at the Marignane production facility of NHI chief stakeholder Airbus Helicopters.

“To my knowledge, there is no firm or official decision on what they intend to do – they are very happy with the performance they get out of their NH90s, in particular the version with the dipping sonar and which they use intensively in the Baltic Sea to hunt for Russian submarines, so they are very busy at the moment. With this on our side, we are focusing on improving the support system,” he added.

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