defence travel system rules

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e-Initiative of the Defence Account Department E-Ticketing/ Defence Travel System  

• Introduction

1. Introduction

Defence Accounts Department has been one of the pioneers in adopting and leveraging new and emerging technologies in all areas including Accounting, Internal Audit, and Payment and Financial Advice functions. The purpose is to provide value-added services to the Services in an efficient and effective manner. In furtherance of this objective the Defence Account Department came up with the idea of replacing the existing system of manual railway ticketing on warrants/Form D / concession vouchers with an electronic web-based system not only to address issues related to accounting, audit & monitoring in manual system but also to meet the current requirement of Services in a digitally enabled environment.

2. The Background

3. New Defence Travel System

To mitigate various constraints like time consuming manual process, waste of precious man-hours in visiting the PRS counters, difficulty in tracking of manual warrant, lengthy accounting process, budgeting and monitoring issues and with the aim of providing cashless travel booking facility to the units/formations for their employees’ to meet all their travel needs, a new project  ‘Defence Travel System’ was conceptualized by Defence Accounts Department in as early as 2009 by making use of latest digital technologies. The Defence Travel System was a major and right step in the direction of e-governance and digitization towards which a renewed thrust and focus is being laid by the Govt. of India. The services of DTS are available under DTS Travel portal on 24X7X365 days anywhere in India where this facility has been enabled.

4. Development phases

Keeping in view the resources available, wide changing technology and initial constraints from all stakeholders it was thought to implement the project in phases in the following manner:

• Phase I : Implementation of e-Ticketing platform for three Defence Services for rail travel in lieu of railway warrant.
• Phase II : Extending the system to cover Air Travel.
• Phase III : Extending the system to Defence Civilians
• Phase IV: Online submission of TA/DA Claims

The first phase of the project covering Rail Travel was launched in December 2009 in collaboration with IRCTC. Phase-II covering Air Travel has been launched in May 2015 in collaboration with M/s Balmer & Lawrie Co. Around 3200 units have been issued login IDs for using the system so far and approx   5.10 lakh user profile has been created so far and count on this account is increasing day by day. Further, training is being organized by CGDA at 27 stations across India for all Services in coordination with DG (OL & Strategic Move) in parallel to training at Delhi centre. Extension of the system to defence civilians (Phase-III) is under implementation. As part of the fourth phase of online submission of TA/DA claims, a module for on-line requisitioning of DA advance is being developed which will subsequently be integrated with the Pay Accounts Office for proper accounting and monitoring.

5. Benefits Availability of travel planning and on-line reservation system to Defence personnel in remote and far flung areas of their posting is a widely acceptable benefit that has accrued from the project. It has also saved the time required to visit to PRS counters. Further, audit of the travel entitlement and authorization is automatically carried out before allowing the booking itself and real time accounting is possible as rules and regulations are inbuilt in the system. Proper budgetary control can be exercised and different MIS can be generated for informed decision making. Cash handing is nil as all debits and credits are done through pay bills/ledger accounts and hence, possibility of fraud/wrong claim is also completely eliminated.

7. Security Features Entry to the portal www.pcdatravel.gov.in   is through e-Token only by the authorized user. The domain is not made available to the public and https secured protocol is followed for transmission. Three layers security features are available for role based access into DTS Portal:

• Digital Certificate -Without digital certificate (e-Token), DTS Portal cannot be accessed.
• Login Credentials-Credential needs to be provided before entered into DTS portal.
• Security Question- At third layer security question/answer that is randomly generated is asked from the user. If user is not having actual answer, he cannot login to the site.

Once all the above stated conditions are passed, then only the user will be able to log into the DTS portal. Further, User Audit log (with IP address, time and date stamp) is maintained. Exchange with IRCTC is through SSL. At the time of launching of the system in 2010, security vetting of DTS portal was done by Army Cyber Security Establishment of Army HQ, NTRO and also by Cert-In, the nodal agency of Govt. of India. Presently also, security audit for additional features is in progress.

8. Future of the System             The system has enormous potential as it not only caters for meeting the travel need of Defence Personnel’s and Defence Civilians but also has inbuilt features of accounting, audit, authorization and entitlement checks which facilitate generation of different types of MIS and thus enables rule based decision making at all levels. Once the system for on-line submission of DA advance and subsequently TA/DA adjustment claim is developed and implemented (work for which is in progress), the cumbersome system of manual TA/DA Claim will be eliminated and it will complete the cycle of cashless, error free and transparent system of travelling for all the users. This will also ensure better monitoring of available budget by the management who can plan the travel needs in a more effective manner.

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UK, Germany deepen defence ties, united in support for Ukraine

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China passed a law on Friday strengthening its trade defence capabilities as the United States and the European Union take aim at Beijing over excess industrial capacity.

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Sunak claims defence spending plan won’t affect government’s ability to cut taxes – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our UK political coverage here

• 2d ago Afternoon summary
• 2d ago Tory MP Natalie Elphicke says renters (reform) bill has been made too favourable to landlords
• 2d ago Don’t rescue people who scupper their Channel boats, says Reform UK deputy leader
• 2d ago What Mhairi Black and Oliver Dowden said at PMQs about mass graves in Gaza
• 2d ago Dowden accused of being 'disingenuous' after suggesting at PMQs that no-fault evictions will end today
• 2d ago No 10 gives further details how it says civil service job cuts could save £2.9bn
• 2d ago Labour dismisses Tory claim they will raise defence spending by £75bn as 'fake figure'
• 2d ago What Sunak said about how defence budget increase won't stop government cutting taxes and investing in public services
• 2d ago Sunak claims defence spending plan won't affect government's ability to keep cutting taxes
• 2d ago PMQs - snap verdict
• 2d ago Dowden criticises SNP's Mhairi Black for comparing Israel to Russia as she asks why MPs not outraged by mass graves in Gaza
• 2d ago Rayner attacks Dowden over no-fault evictions and says Tories are obsessed with her house
• 2d ago Nigel Farage can host GB News show during election, says Ofcom
• 2d ago Oliver Dowden to face Angela Rayner at PMQs
• 2d ago PCS union says it will fight 'tooth and nail' against Tory plans to cut civil service jobs
• 2d ago All Nato nations should match UK’s defence spending target, says Shapps
• 2d ago UK accused by Amnesty of ‘deliberately destabilising’ human rights globally
• 2d ago Tony Blair leads tributes to Frank Field, ‘an independent thinker always pushing at the frontier of new ideas’

Sunak claims defence spending plan won't affect government's ability to keep cutting taxes

At the press conference the opening statements are over, and Rishi Sunak and Olaf Scholz are now taking questions.

Q: [To Sunak] Are you really being honest with people about the funding of your defence spending plan?

Sunak does not accept he is misleading people.

He says the government will reduce the size of the civil service.

The government is making a choice, he says.

He thinks it is important for Britain to stand up for its values.

He says this announcement is consistent with the government’s ability to “keep cutting taxes”.

He mentions tax cuts already announced, but he seems to be hinting that the defence spending announcement does not mean that further tax cuts won’t be included in the Tory election manifesto.

UPDATE: Sunak said:

The plan that I announced yesterday, it’s fully funded. It’s funded, rightly with a reduction in civil service headcount back to 2019 levels. Snce then we’ve seen a very significant rise that isn’t sustainable or needed. The chancellor has conducted a detailed exercise, he announced this at the end of last year, that exercise is completed, and that’s what gives us the confidence that we can release the savings needed to fund our defence plan, combined with an uplift in R&S spending, which we have already budgeted for … It is the biggest strengthening of our national defence in a generation. It is fully funded. And it is based on the fact that we have a strong economy and an economic plan that is working … And it’s because our economic plan is working that I’m able to make these announcements and they are entirely consistent with our ability to keep cutting people’s taxes.

Afternoon summary

Rishi Sunak has claimed that his plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 won’t stop the government from cutting taxes and investing in public services. (See 1.38pm .)

Angela Rayner has accused ministers of “obsessing” over her living arrangements and urged them to focus on implementing long-promised housing reforms instead.

Tributes from across the political spectrum have been paid to the former Labour minister and welfare campaigner Frank Field, who has died at the age of 81. And here is the Guardian’s obituary of Field, by Dennis Kavanagh.

Ministers have pledged to publish a long-buried internal study into the emotional and financial impact of fines and prosecutions incurred by tens of thousands of unpaid carers for falling foul of strict carer’s allowance earnings rules.

Jeffrey Donaldson has appeared in court charged with rape, gross indecency and other sexual offences spanning 21 years in a case that has stunned Northern Ireland.

Ministers are unable to say when the ban on no-fault eviction set out in the renters (reform) bill will actually come into force (see 3.16pm ) because the government has tabled an amendment (new clause 30, or NC30) saying the Ministry of Justice must carry out a review of county court capacity first. This is one of the changes being made as a concession to landlords. The justification for it is that, if landlords cannot use no-fault evictions, they may end up spending a lot more time in court trying to persuade judges to allow them to remove their tenants.

This is one of more than 200 government amendments down for debate today. Most of them are very minor and technical, but they are needed because the government is making substantial changes to the bill too (like NC30). The bill has already gone through its committee stage in the Commons and it is unusual for so much re-writing to be taking place at this point.

In the debate this afternoon, defending NC30, Jacob Young , the housing minister, said:

If we don’t have a ready court system when we make this change, the biggest change in 30 years, if the courts aren’t ready for these changes that will not benefit tenants, it won’t benefit landlords, but it certainly won’t benefit tenants either … New clause 30 will enable the government to assess the effects that our new tenancy system is having on the county courts before our reforms are rolled out more widely, giving us confidence that the sector is ready.

Tory MP Natalie Elphicke says renters (reform) bill has been made too favourable to landlords

The Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke has accused her own party of breaking a promise it made in its last election manifesto to ban no-fault evictions.

During this afternoon’s debate on the renters (reform) bill Elphicke echoed an argument made by Angela Rayner at PMQs (see 3.16pm ), telling MPs:

This is a bill that the Conservative manifesto in 2019 promised would benefit tenants. Instead, this has become a bill where the balance too often is in favour of the landlords, particularly with the new clause 30 which could indefinitely delay the abolition of section 21 no-fault evictions. If that were so, that would be nothing short of a betrayal for the Conservative manifesto that was promised in 2019 and, for that reason, I’m unable to support this today.

Referring to other features of the bill, which is being watered down by government amendments favourable to landlords , she said:

It is my view that this bill does not go far enough now in dealing with the fundamental challenges of the private rented sector. The private rented sector is no longer a flex or transitionary tenure. It is the main tenure for millions of people for much, if not all, of their lives. Sadly, the original principle of the bill, which was to create a fair and responsible new rented sector, has been undermined by the government’s amendments.

Here are some of the pictures from today’s PMQs taken by Jessica Taylor , the official Commons photographer.

Don’t rescue people who scupper their Channel boats, says Reform UK deputy leader

Ben Habib , a deputy leader of Reform UK, has proposed not rescuing people in the Channel if they scupper their small boats and refuse new dinghies as they should “suffer the consequences of their actions”. Rowena Mason has the story.

A reader asks:

Is there any truth is the rumour that this “additional” defence spending will include the money spent/given to Ukraine and others abroad?

Yes, it will. I covered this on the blog yesterday , but here is the page from a Ministry of Defence document sent to journalists confirming that military aid to Ukraine is included in the sum linked to the 2.5% target.

According to polling by YouGov , while public concern about how the government was handling inflation went up at roughly the same rate as inflation itself, it is not going down at the same rate.

As inflation rose, public negativity on the government's handling of the issue rose in lockstep. But with inflation now falling, public opinion is not improving nearly as quickly, suggesting a delay in electoral dividends (if any) to Rishi Sunak for meeting his inflation pledge… pic.twitter.com/2tejeenwew — YouGov (@YouGov) April 24, 2024

What Mhairi Black and Oliver Dowden said at PMQs about mass graves in Gaza

A reader has asked for a fuller version of the exchange at PMQs between Mhairi Black, the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster, and Oliver Dowden, the deputy PM, about mass graves in Gaza. (See 12.23pm .)

Black started:

Two years ago, when mass graves were discovered in Ukraine, this House united in condemnation and rightly treated those graves as evidence of war crimes, which Russia must be made to answer for. Yesterday, Palestinian officials uncovered two mass graves outside the bombed hospitals in Gaza. Those graves also constitute a war crime, do they not?

Dowden replied:

Of course, we would expect the democratic Government of Israel to investigate any allegations of misconduct. That is exactly what they are doing, and it is exactly what the foreign secretary and the prime minister urge them to do. However, I find it quite extraordinary that the hon. Lady seeks to draw parallels between the legitimate war of self-defence of Israel and the conduct of Russia.

Then Black responded:

Three hundred bodies, including of the elderly and the injured, some of which had been stripped naked and mutilated, with their hands tied behind their backs. The UK’s own arms policy states that if there is even a risk that war crimes may be taking place, that is reason enough to halt the sale of arms. Given all that we know, why is the prime minister yet to do so?

And Dowden replied:

We continue to urge the Israeli government to investigate any allegations of misconduct. The difference though is that we can trust the Israeli Government – a democratically elected Government – to properly investigate those things. Of course, we keep the advice under review. The foreign secretary has recently made it clear that he has conducted a determination and has not changed his advice regarding export licences, and I think that is the correct decision.

Dowden accused of being 'disingenuous' after suggesting at PMQs that no-fault evictions will end today

MPs are now debating the final stages of the renters (reform) bill. It is supposed to implement a commitment in the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto to abolish no-fault evictions but amendments tabled by the government have watered this down.

At PMQs Angela Rayner , the deputy Labour leader, challenged Oliver Dowden , the deputy PM, to say when the ban on no-fault evictions would come into force. In an interview with the BBC this morning Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, said he hoped the bill would become law before the election, and at PMQs Rayner asked Dowden:

This week the housing minister said there is no solid date for banning no-fault evictions, the housing secretary [Gove] now says it won’t happen before an election, so if he can give us a date, can he name it now?

I can name the date for [Rayner], today. It’s today that this house will be voting on it. And I’m confident that in line with our manifesto we will deliver on that commitment.

In response, the Renters’ Reform Coalition said Dowden was being “disingenuous”. Tom Darling, campaign manager at the coalition, said:

Michael Gove U-turned this morning to say he couldn’t guarantee the end of no-fault evictions. The deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden knows that no-fault evictions won’t be abolished today, so it’s disingenuous for him to say the practice will end today. Renters facing these evictions up and down the country tomorrow, who have already been so badly let down by endless delays caused by Conservative landlord MPs, don’t deserve to have their hopes artificially raised yet again.

No 10 gives further details how it says civil service job cuts could save £2.9bn

Downing Street has now come up with an explanation for the discrepancy between the £1bn the government said it would save from civil service job cuts last autumn and the £2.9bn it now says those cuts will save. (See 2.15pm .)

No 10 says the £1bn figure was the amount that would be saved from capping headcount numbers at current levels. By March 2025 that would save £1bn, the Treasury said at the time.

But the figure quoted yesterday relates to how much would be saved by starting to reduce the civil service headcount from 2025-26 onwards. Those savings would get you to £2.9bn by 2028-28, No 10 says.

At the post-PMQs lobby briefing Downing Street was unable to explain why the government now expects to save far more from its plans to cut the size of the civil service than the amount it said it would raise when this proposal was first announced.

Explaining how it will fund the plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030, the government has said £1.6bn will come from an increase in R&D funding for defence and the remaining £2.9bn will come from a reduction in civil service headcount to pre-pandemic level – a reduction of 70,000 people.

But in October 2023, when Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, announced the plan to reduce civil service numbers at the Conservative party conferenve, he said this would save £1bn by 2025 .

A No 10 spokesperson said there were no further details about how those reductions would lead to a saving of almost £2bn more. She said:

There has been work under way with the Treasury and departments after announcing that we would cap headcount and we have now come forward with the costings associated with that and confirmed that would be reallocated to defence spending. We will set it out in spending reviews in the usual way, there will be a programme of work.

There is no spending review expected this year and one would not be expected to take place until after the election.

UPDATE: After the lobby briefing No 10 did come back to journalists with an explanation for the discrepancy between the £1bn figure and the £2.9bn figure. See 2.39pm.

Labour dismisses Tory claim they will raise defence spending by £75bn as 'fake figure'

Labour has described the government’s claim that it has a plan to raise defence spending by £75bn by 2030 as based on a “fake figure”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has described this figure as misleading. (See 10.35am .)

Speaking in the Commons, in response to a statement from Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, his Labour shadow John Healey said:

If this 2030 plan had been in a budget, it would have been independently checked, openly costed, and fully funded. So where is the additional money coming from? How much from which other R&D (research and development) budgets? How much from cutting how many civil servants in which departments? They’ve tried this trick before, in the 2015 defence review ministers pledged to cut 30% of the MoD civil servants to make their defence spending plans add up. Civil servant numbers didn’t go down, they went up. Not down to 41,000 but up to 63,000. Now he’s mentioned an additional £75bn five times in his statement, over the next six years the government’s official spending plan are based on a 0.5% real annual growth in chore defence spending. Why has he invented his own zero growth baseline to produce this fake figure claiming an extra £75bn for defence. The public will judge ministers by what they do, not what they say.

In response, Shapps said:

He says judge us by our action, not our words. You know what, we will, because 11 members of that side’s frontbench voted against Trident. So it’s no good for him and the leader of the opposition to go up to Barrow and claim that they’re all in favour now of the nuclear weapons, of the nuclear defence.

Some 402 people were detected crossing the Channel on Tuesday, according to provisional figures from the Home Office , PA Media reports. PA says:

The cumulative number of arrivals by small boats in 2024 now stands at a provisional total of 6,667. This is 20% higher than the total at the equivalent point last year, which was 5,546, but slightly lower (down 0.4%) than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 6,691. Some seven boats were detected on Tuesday, which suggests an average of around 57 people per boat. There were 29,437 arrivals across the whole of 2023, down 36% on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.

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Minister for Defence Procurement speech at Strategic Command Conference

Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge, delivered a speech on procurement reforms at the UK Strategic Command Annual Conference in London.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first speech I’ve made since Sunday, which was my anniversary as Minister of State for Defence Procurement. With one year in the job, I don’t know if I’ve actually achieved IOC, certainly not FOC, I imagine.

But with the help of Strategic Command, I’ve introduced a brand new procurement model which embodies both of them.

On the subject of procurement reform, I’m very conscious that I’ve caused many of you to have a busy start to the year and following our announcement this week to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP and increase support for Ukraine with additional half a billion pounds. It is going to get an awful lot busier. So I wanted to come here today to thank all of you in person, all the various parts of Strategic Command that have helped us to deliver our new pan-defence Integrated Procurement Model and our new Defence Drone Strategy, in particular, our capability directorates and our Integration Design Authority in Strat Com.

Now, whilst I know most of you are familiar with the fine print of these new strategies, and certainly should be, and the fact that we’ve committed to invest at least 4.6 billion pounds in uncrewed technologies over the next decade, and a further £325 million to deliver over 10,000 drones to Ukraine’s Armed Forces, I’m conscious not all of our international friends will be. And because our national security is built on our alliances, I want to give an overview of the changes we’ve enacted. And to respond to the inevitable commentary that we’ve heard it all before. That change won’t actually happen in practice. In fact, I’ve seen copious lists on previous procurement reforms listed on social media. The change is coming.

This is really what I want to stress. We are making tangible progress. I’m pleased to say that if we return to the specific promises I made, in my parliamentary statement on February the 28th, announcing our new Integrated Procurement Model, change is already happening. Indeed, it’s worth stressing, change was already happening before with rapid procurement into Ukraine from DE&S in Abbey Wood. More investment in our procurement people, that’s particularly our SROs. Another acronym, Senior Responsible Owners, for those who don’t know, and an overall reduction of one year procurement timelines, so good things were happening. But in my February statement, I acknowledged that the reputation of MOD procurement has been seriously damaged in recent years, by delays to high profile programmes such as Ajax, and actually many before that, and under successive governments. And above all, putting all that to one side, the reality is that our adversaries are progressing their technological development at such a pace that we have no choice but to reform procurement, or we will lose military competitiveness, the edge as you’re calling it today.

So in addressing that age old question in my February statement, how to reform defence procurement, I set out five key areas for actual change. First, to be more joined up.

We all know that we have and require an integrated concept of operations, that the modern battle space needs a multidomain approach where all our forces can talk to each other and share data and yet, till now, we have had a bottom up, delegated procurement model.

The challenge here is that when financial pressures arise, it becomes hard to deliver affordability, with the unintended and inadvertent consequence that results in single service competition, seeking to get programmes on contract, knowing that funding is constrained. This is what we call over-programming. It is, dare I say, the bête noire, of our procurement system, and is typically addressed by the very outcome we want to avoid, delay as programmes are inevitably shifted to the right.

So I set out and intend to deliver a more integrated approach. In my speech, I gave a very specific example of where this was already happening. And I quote, “a key example will be our pending munition strategy, a top priority given our need to replenish weapons stocks to warfighting levels, pan-defence prioritisation of munitions procurement will not only be driven by the hard reality of the greatest threats we face, but the scale of demand seeking required for always on production, the optimal outcome for both military and industry.”

So for those who are sceptical about our procurement reforms making an actual difference, fast forward to this week, and the Prime Minister confirm that our move to 2.5% on defence would enable an additional £10 billion over 10 years for munitions strategy, delivering the very always on production that I promised.

This strategy was developed with pan-defence prioritisation at its core, but its results will enhance the capabilities of each of our frontline commands.

Whatever our budget, 2.5% or more, we will always need to prioritise and prioritisation will always be challenging. Working in a joined-up fashion makes it much more deliverable.

The second priority of our new reforms is to introduce new checks and balances, guarding against the problems that have bedevilled past programmes. Strategic Command will have a particularly significant role here, with their Integration Design Authority now overseeing the procurement system. They will have a watchdog role, ensuring programmes are integrated where appropriate, in particular, a positive role to drive opportunities, such as ensuring programmes take advantage of AI. And of course, General Jim Hockenhull will say more on than that shortly.

But when it comes to new checks and balances, and I want to say you know, hand on heart, if you like, from my experience over this past year and someone who has seen the full gamut of procurement submissions from the department, if there is one element of the reform that could yet have the most telling impact, this is what I have termed the second opinion. This is about utilising the expertise we have in our enterprise to set up procurement programmes for success. From the outset, by properly kicking the tyres on requirements and challenging assumptions. Again, this is now underway. The nascent programmes will be standing up a new model where I receive independent advice direct to ministers to set alongside the military’s requirements. This will include the views on that programme of our Dstl scientists to ask those technological questions that our current system would not necessarily pose. Bearing in mind how the US have recently cancelled their FARA programme, future attack reconnaissance aircraft, dropping a crewed helicopter to consider an uncrewed version. This is where I would expect such questions of technological viability to be probed.

I also want this advice to include the clearest guidance from DE&S on industrial options, that key political question in many ways, whether to go off the shelf, sovereign, or somewhere in between, and crucially, in a system infamous for procuring the shiny platform without necessarily having a plan for the boring but essential enablers to go with it. This advice would include full transparency on costs, not just the estimated cost of the platform or capability itself, but all the enablers that go with it. If you’re buying a ship, you have to tell us if the dock needs to be bigger to accommodate it. We need to know.

The third priority is exportability. I want to strengthen the position of exportability and acquisition not just to boost industrial resilience, given the vulnerability of businesses that rely solely on the UK market, also because I believe consideration of international demand guards against what we call these overly bespoke requirements setting practices. I think actually the word we like in defence is ‘exquisite’. But I genuinely think that if you are prioritising exportability from the outset, you reduce the chance to be driven by these overly exquisite requirements. Again, we are now delivering that in practice. Our recent next stage of the new medium helicopter bid has given a strong weighting on exports. I want this to become the norm. And our reformed cross government defence exports committee, which sat again recently, has endorsed the process of internal change that will enable us across departments to ensure exportability is considered in depth from the outset with acquisition.

The fourth priority is to develop and procure the best kit and be more efficient, involving our partners from industry and capability design from day one. And we will build constant feedback loops with them so that they can make the most of our latest information from war-gaming exercises and the frontline, again, we are already delivering that practice with deep engagement with industry at secret, now commonplace, and there’s much more of that to come, I’m pleased to say.

And fifth and finally, we are wholeheartedly embracing spiral development. So that we get great kit into the hands of our service personnel as soon as it’s ready to have an impact on the battlefield, knowing that we can improve it further as requirements change and technologies advance. Again, change is happening in practice.

We’ve published our spiral development playbook for MOD personnel. And this stresses how our default approach is not just spiral, but instead of elaborate IOC and FOC, replacing them with minimum deployable capability. As I put it, basically in a nutshell, to the point where the equipment can be used if the balloon goes up. And once again, this is happening in practice. We recently announced the procurement of our ground-breaking DragonFire laser, by driving it to minimum deployable capability instead of IOC, FOC, very elaborate, we are knocking years off the procurement timeline and want it on our naval ships in 2027. Anyone who knows procurement in the MOD, that timeline, dare I say is the speed of light, literally.

But this is crucially about prioritising military risk against all the other considerations we face and maximising pace of delivery. And on the matter of pace in my February statement, I confirmed that our reformed procurement approach will set new timescales of three and five years for digital programmes and platforms respectively, and again, we are delivering in practice.

If Ukraine has shown us anything in the land domain, it is that artillery remains critical. In my February statement, I promised that our enduring mobile fires platform would be accelerated to ensure it fitted within the new five-year target. And I was therefore absolutely delighted that yesterday the Prime Minister and I were in Germany to confirm that we will be procuring the highly capable Boxer-based RCH 155. And aiming for this to be in service before the end of the decade and within the five-year timeframe.

Finally, I said in my February statement that drones would be a pipe cleaner for the Integrated Procurement Model. I set out in our Defence Drone Strategy, also in February, that I believed uncrewed systems with a future of mass in warfare, giving us a unique opportunity to augment and enhance existing capabilities and platforms and add new forms of strike ISR and lift capability in their own right.

So I was delighted that the Prime Minister put a big emphasis on science, innovation and R&D in his defence spending announcement earlier this week. And from next year, we will ring fence 5% of our defence budget for R&D. That will be a huge boost for those of you in this room, working to develop new capabilities. And with our new Defence Innovation Agency, I hope that this gives us the chance to bring greater cohesion to our R&D efforts. Because it’s brilliant news that this week we have heard £75 billion of extra funding for defence, but taxpayers will expect us to spend it as effectively as possible. That means procurement reform and it means ensuring more of our R&D spend actually leads to frontline capability being pulled through.

So ladies and gentlemen, the reforms that we’ve started are taking effect. Together with our new bigger defence budget, they can help the UK and our allies retain our military edge for years to come. With the right balance of capabilities, our advantage coming from technology, our mass coming from our alliances and uncrewed systems and our effectiveness coming from integration. We can maintain a world class fighting machine. This is an incredibly exciting prospect and I commend you for your work to build it.

Thank you very much.

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25 April 2024

Airbus reports first quarter (q1) 2024 results.

• 142   commercial aircraft delivered 
• Revenues € 12.8 billion; EBIT Adjusted € 0.6 billion
• EBIT (reported) € 0.6 billion; EPS (reported) € 0.76
• Free cash flow before customer financing € -1.8 billion
• 2024 guidance unchanged

Amsterdam, 25 April 2024  – Airbus SE (stock exchange symbol: AIR) reported consolidated financial results for its First Quarter (Q1) ended 31 March 2024.

“We delivered first quarter 2024 results against the backdrop of an operating environment that shows no sign of improvement. Geopolitical and supply chain tensions continue. In that context, we delivered 142 commercial aircraft,” said Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury. “We started 2024 with a solid order intake across our businesses. The strong momentum on widebody aircraft underpins our decision to increase the production rate for the A350 to 12 aircraft a month in 2028. Our ramp up plans are continuing, supported by the investments in our production system while relying on our core pillars of safety, quality, integrity, compliance and security.”

Gross commercial aircraft orders totalled 170 (Q1 2023: 156 aircraft) with the same number of net orders due to no cancellations (Q1 2023 net orders: 142 aircraft). The order backlog amounted to 8,626 commercial aircraft at the end of March 2024. Airbus Helicopters registered 63 net orders (Q1 2023: 39 units), mainly in the light and medium segments. Airbus Defence and Space’s order intake by value was € 2.0 billion (Q1 2023: € 2.5 billion).

Consolidated revenues  increased 9 percent year-on-year to € 12.8 billion (Q1 2023: € 11.8 billion). A total of 142 commercial aircraft were delivered (Q1 2023: 127 aircraft), comprising 12 A220s, 116 A320 Family, 7 A330s   and 7 A350s. Revenues generated by Airbus’ commercial aircraft activities increased 13 percent, mainly reflecting the higher number of deliveries. Airbus Helicopters’ deliveries totalled 50 units (Q1 2023: 71 units) while its revenues decreased 9 percent, reflecting the lower volume of deliveries, partially offset by services. Revenues at Airbus Defence and Space increased 4 percent mainly driven by the Air Power business, partly offset by a less favourable phasing in Space Systems. One A400M military airlifter was delivered in the quarter.

Consolidated EBIT Adjusted  – an alternative   performance measure and key indicator capturing the underlying business margin by excluding material charges or profits caused by movements in provisions related to programmes, restructuring or foreign exchange impacts as well as capital gains/losses from the disposal and acquisition of businesses – was € 577 million (Q1 2023: € 773 million). It includes the planned impact linked to the increased Airbus Employee Share Ownership Plan, which saw record participation among employees, and resulted in a year-on-year expense increase of slightly above € 0.1 billion.

EBIT Adjusted related to Airbus’ commercial aircraft activities decreased to € 507 million (Q1 2023: € 580 million), with the positive impact from higher deliveries being offset by a slightly less favourable hedge rate as well as investments for preparing the future. 

The A220 ramp-up continues towards a monthly production rate of 14 aircraft in 2026, with a focus on the programme's industrial maturity and financial performance. On the A320 Family programme, the Company is making progress towards the rate of 75 aircraft per month in 2026. Entry-into-service of the A321XLR continues to be expected in Q3 2024. On widebody aircraft, the Company has decided to increase the production rate for the A350 to 12 aircraft a month in 2028 and continues to target rate 4 for the A330 in 2024.

Airbus Helicopters’ EBIT Adjusted decreased to € 71 million (Q1 2023: € 156 million), from a particularly strong first quarter in 2023 and reflecting the lower deliveries. 

EBIT Adjusted at Airbus Defence and Space decreased to € -9 million (Q1 2023: € 36 million), mainly reflecting the lower volume and profitability of Space Systems, notably linked to the Estimates at Completion updates performed in the second half of 2023. 

On the A400M programme, development activities continue towards achieving the revised capability roadmap. Retrofit activities are progressing in close alignment with the customer. No net material impact was recognised in the first quarter of 2024. Risks remain on the qualification of technical capabilities and associated costs, on aircraft operational reliability, on cost reductions and on securing overall volume as per the revised baseline.

Consolidated self-financed R&D   expenses  totalled € 743 million (Q1 2023: € 683 million).

Consolidated EBIT   (reported) amounted to € 609 million (Q1 2023: € 390 million), including net Adjustments of € +32 million.

These Adjustments comprised: 

• € -13 million related to the dollar working capital mismatch and balance sheet revaluation. This mainly reflects the phasing impact arising from the difference between transaction date and delivery date;
• € +51 million related to the gain on Airbus OneWeb Satellites, linked to the recent acquisition of the remaining 50% of the joint venture;
• € -6 million of other costs including compliance costs.

 The financial result was € 229 million (Q1 2023: € 149 million), mainly reflecting a positive impact from the revaluation of certain equity investments. Consolidated  net income (1) was € 595 million (Q1 2023: € 466 million) with consolidated reported  earnings per share  of € 0.76 (Q1 2023: € 0.59).

Consolidated free cash flow   before customer financing  was € -1,791 million (Q1 2023: € -876 million), mainly reflecting the planned inventory build-up resulting from the execution of the ramp-up across programmes. Consolidated  free cash flow was € -1,799 million (Q1 2023: € -873 million). The  gross cash position stood at € 23.4 billion at the end of March 2024 (year-end 2023: € 25.3 billion), with a consolidated  net cash position of € 8.7 billion (year-end 2023: € 10.7 billion). 

Outlook 

The guidance issued in February 2024 remains unchanged.

As the basis for its 2024 guidance, the Company assumes no additional disruptions to the world economy, air traffic, the supply chain, the Company’s internal operations, and its ability to deliver products and services.

The Company’s 2024 guidance is before M&A.

On that basis, the Company targets to achieve in 2024:

• Around 800 commercial aircraft deliveries;
• EBIT Adjusted between € 6.5 billion and € 7.0 billion;
• Free Cash Flow before Customer Financing of around € 4.0 billion.

Note to editors: Live Webcast of the Analyst Conference Call

At  19:30 CEST on  25 April 2024 , you can follow the  Q1 2024 Results Analyst Conference   Call via the Airbus website at  https://www.airbus.com/en/investors . The analyst call presentation can also be found on the website. A recording will be made available in due course. For a reconciliation of Airbus’ KPIs to “reported IFRS” please refer to the analyst presentation.

Consolidated Airbus – First Quarter (Q1) 2024 Results  

(Amounts in Euro)

EBIT (reported) / EBIT Adjusted Reconciliation

The table below reconciles EBIT (reported) with EBIT Adjusted.

• Airbus SE continues to use the term Net Income/Loss. It is identical to Profit/Loss for the period attributable to equity owners of the parent as defined by IFRS Rules.

Safe Harbour Statement:

This press release includes forward-looking statements. Words such as “anticipates”, “believes”, “estimates”, “expects”, “intends”, “plans”, “projects”, “may” and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include statements made about strategy, ramp-up and delivery schedules, introduction of new products and services and market expectations, as well as statements regarding future performance and outlook. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to future events and circumstances and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. 

These factors include but are not limited to:

• Changes in general economic, political or market conditions, including the cyclical nature of some of Airbus’ businesses; 
• Significant disruptions in air travel (including as a result of the spread of disease or terrorist attacks);
• Currency exchange rate fluctuations, in particular between the Euro and the U.S. dollar;
• The successful execution of internal performance plans, including cost reduction and productivity efforts;
• Product performance risks, as well as programme development and management risks;
• Customer, supplier and subcontractor performance or contract negotiations, including financing issues;
• Competition and consolidation in the aerospace and defence industry;
• Significant collective bargaining labour disputes;
• The outcome of political and legal processes, including the availability of government financing for certain programmes and the size of defence and space procurement budgets;
• Research and development costs in connection with new products;
• Legal, financial and governmental risks related to international transactions;
• Legal and investigatory proceedings and other economic, political and technological risks and uncertainties;
• Changes in societal expectations and regulatory requirements about climate change;
• The lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic; 
• Aggravation of adverse geopolitical events, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting imposition of export control restrictions and international sanctions, and rising military tensions around the world.

As a result, Airbus SE’s actual results may differ materially from the plans, goals and expectations set forth in such forward-looking statements.

For more information about the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the impact of the Macroeconomic Environment, see note 2 “Geopolitical and Macroeconomic Environment” of the Notes to the Airbus SE Unaudited Condensed Interim IFRS Consolidated Financial Statements for the three-month period ended 31 March 2024 published 25 April 2024 (the “Financial Statements”). For more information about factors that could cause future results to differ from such forward-looking statements, please refer to Airbus SE’s most recent annual reports, including the Report of the Board of Directors, the Financial Statements and the Notes thereto, the Universal Registration Document and the most recent Risk Factors. Any forward-looking statement contained in this press release speaks as of the date of this press release. Airbus SE undertakes no obligation to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statement in light of new information, future events or otherwise.

Due to rounding, numbers presented may not add up precisely to the totals provided and percentages may not precisely reflect the absolute figures.  st

Your contact

Guillaume Steuer

Head of External Communications - Airbus

Airbus Corporate Communications

Justin Dubon

External Communications - Commercial Aircraft

Martin Agüera

Head of External Communications - Airbus Defence and Space

Laurence Petiard

Airbus Helicopters

Philippe Gmerek

External Communications - Airbus

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