Earlier, it lost campaigns in the Netherlands and South Korea in 2002, Singapore in 2005, Saudi Arabia in 2006 and Morocco in 2007. Recently the company lost to Sweden's Gripen in Switzerland. In November 2011, Dassault lost a lucrative and long-awaited deal to sell at least 60 Rafale jets to the United Arab Emirates at the eleventh hour, when crown prince prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, deputy supreme commander of UAE Armed Forces said the contract terms were uncompetitive and unworkable. However, all is not well until the last signature is on paper. The winner must also agree to invest a portion of the contract amount back into India's defence sector, a system called 'defence offsets.'
The rest will be manufactured in Bangalore by India's state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) under a technology transfer programme. According to the request for proposal (RFP), the winner must deliver 18 of the 126 aircraft to the Indian Air Force (IAF) in fly-away condition within 36 months. India will sign the final contract with Dassault only in the next financial year. The negotiations will include plane configuration, precise costs, delivery of offsets and technology transfer. The MMRCA order comes with a bevy of conditions which the winner must fulfill. The two companies were the finalists in India's $10.4 billion order to expand its fleet of fighter planes technically called medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) after eliminating rivals like Lockheed Martin's F-16IN, Boeing's F-18, Mikoyan's MiG-35 Saab's Gripen NG.Īccording to India's defence procurement procedure (DPP), a specially constituted body called the contract negotiations committee will now engage Dassault for more discussions, a process which promises to be long and arduous for both sides. On January 31, it was announced that Dassault's Rafale was the lowest bidder (L1) in the final shootout with EADS Cassidian's Eurofighter. However, for the company which has seen several export orders slipping between the cup and the lip, several hurdles remain before it can finally lay its hands on the prized contract. The first Rafale export order breathes life into the Dassault's combat plane programme and makes it a strong contender on the global market for fighters.
Dassault Aviation has secured a dazzling victory with India's mega-order to beef up its air power with 126 Rafale fighter jets.