UK signs 1.5 bln stg military air traffic deal with Thales-NATS JV

LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Wednesday awarded a 1.5 billion pound ($2.4 billion) contract to manage its military air traffic operations to a joint venture between French firm Thales (Paris: FR0000121329 - news) and NATS.

The MoD said the deal will deliver a long-term, modern and reliable military air traffic management service and would save the British taxpayer up to 1 billion pounds over the next 22 years by merging 70 contracts into one.

The new joint venture, called AQUILA (Paris: FR0010340711 - news) , will operate air traffic control at over 60 MoD sites across Britain and its bases in Cyprus, the Falkland Islands (Other OTC: FLKDF - news) and elsewhere.

NATS, which is jointly owned by the British government and airline companies, controls commercial air traffic in Britain and other countries. (1 US dollar = 0.6205 British pound) (Reporting by Neil Maidment and Sarah Young, Editing by Paul Sandle)