In this exclusive interview, Major General (Retd.) Dimitrios Petridis, Former Programme Manager of the Aviation Support Programme Office, NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) discusses the interconnected challenges facing the military airlift community.

He covers the pooling and sharing of resources among Nations which led initially to the establishment of the C-130 Partnership by the NATO Maintenance & Supply Agency, the expansion of its scope through the Fixed Wing Aircraft Partnership, the establishment of the European Air Transport Command and the Movement Coordination Centre Europe. 

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Major General (Retd.) answers the following questions:

• Reflecting on previous experiences, what are the biggest points of change (in mentality) within the multinational pooling and sharing initiatives? 
• Responding to current economic and geopolitical context, what do you think the main mission demands are on multinational pooling and sharing initiatives?
• In consideration of these demands, do you believe there is scope for the introduction of part pooling multinational initiatives?
• Most of the current pooling and sharing initiatives seem to be NATO or EU-centric. Do you see potential for collaboration on a global scale?

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Major General Petridis: 

“The message here is that the implementation of high-level targets such as the Strategic Airlift Capability can be achieved only by a strong commitment to a multinational cooperation by the various Nations, regardless of the avenue to be chosen (C-17 or A-400M), which is directly related to other very important parameters such as Budget, Timing or support of the local Industry. In either case, consensus is of paramount importance to materialise these high level-targets which in the current case produced successful results for the International Community by both avenues pursued, making thus possible to bridge the gap of the SAC deficit in Europe within the first decade of the 21st century.”