British defence firm BAE Systems said on Tuesday it is considering all options, including a price cut, in order to get a chance to win back the Indian contract for 126 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force.
“Clearly one of the options is to consider price,” a BAE Systems spokesperson told this newspaper on Tuesday after the firm’s chief executive Ian King as saying that the four-nation consortium was considering all options to get back into the contention for the Indian contract.
“I will be discussing with our partners what we do next. In my view, all options are on the table<” Mr King was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.
The Eurofighter consortium, comprising of UK, Germany, Italy and Spain, on Tuesday refused to elaborate on the comments made by BAE Systems and its chief executive.
Commenting on the BAE’s chief executive’s statement, Royal United Services Institute analyst John Louth said that “there is always a chance for Typhoon, given that the contract has not yet been signed.”
However, he also pointed out that “the Indian government has made clear that the French alternative is the preferred option. Moreover, it would be difficult for the Typhoon partners to now change the outcome through a price change without undermining the very notion of a procurement competition.”
There could be hope for the Typhoon team if the Indian government reconsiders the life costs along with the unit price of the two fighters, Dr Louth said. “I think there is a little more work for the Indian government to do to properly understand all aspects of the through-life costs, and this could offer hope to the Typhoon team. The UK government itself has little option other than to continually assert the merits of the Typhoon aircraft, and a high-ranking RAF team is now in India making such a case,” he explained.
British Prime Minister David Cameron last week had made it clear that the battle was not over as yet.