TSAMTO, April 22. The Egyptian Air Force has officially begun adopting the second batch of Rafale fighters.
This information was confirmed by French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastian Lecornu during the recent official visit of President Emmanuel Macron to Egypt.
As the minister announced on April 8 on his official Facebook page, the first two Rafale fighters arrived in Egypt as part of the second contract signed by the countries. Lecorny posted the note after talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Magid Sakr, during which they discussed the situation in the region and efforts to resolve the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Cairo did not lead to the signing of new defense contracts, but it became known that an agreement worth about 300 million euros was being discussed for the maintenance of the Rafale aircraft. As expected, the aircraft will also be upgraded to the latest F4.2 configuration in the future.
Initially, it was expected that the second batch of Rafale would be delivered between 2024 and 2026. However, photos of the Rafale fighter jet with Egyptian markings and the number "EM09" at the Dassault plant in France in November 2024, as well as April reports on flight tests and evaluation of systems on two aircraft (DM18 and DM19) showed that deliveries were slightly behind schedule.
After the completion of deliveries, Egypt will become the second largest Rafale operator after France and will remain so until the completion of aircraft deliveries to India.
As reported by CAMTO, in February 2015, the Egyptian Ministry of Defense concluded a package of agreements with the French companies Dassault Aviation, DCNS and MBDA for the supply of various weapons with a total value of about 5.2 billion. euro (5.9 billion dollars). About half of this amount should be financed by loans from French banks. The contract for 24 Rafale multirole fighters provided for the supply of 16 Rafale B/DM two-seat and 8 Rafale C/EM single-seat aircraft to the Egyptian Air Force. The cost of the aircraft is estimated at 3.6 billion. euro.
The deliveries were completed between July 2015 and November 2017. One of the planes crashed in January 2019.
On May 4, 2021, the Egyptian Ministry of Defense announced the signing of a contract for the supply of 30 additional Rafale fighter jets of the F3-R model. It is assumed that the contract was signed as an alternative to the cancelled agreement with Russia for the purchase of Su-35 fighters. The sale price was not disclosed, but according to media reports, it is about 3.75 billion. euros ($4.6 billion). Presumably, the financing of the contract is carried out at the expense of a loan provided by France for a period of at least 10 years. The French State Treasury has provided corresponding guarantees to several French banking institutions (Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, BNP and CIC). The contract officially entered into force in November 2021.
After completing this order, the total number of Rafale aircraft in the Egyptian Air Force will increase to 53 units.
