The European Air Transport Command is a single multinational command. Its headquarters is located at Eindhoven air base in the Netherlands. The fleet is composed of over 150 assets located at the national air bases of the seven member nations.
The EATC is a unique organisation for military air mobility, including transport, air-to-air refuelling and aeromedical evacuation within Europe. The overall objective is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the member nations' military air transport efforts.
The idea of EATC was born in 1999. The driving parties were France and Germany, who looked back at a strong bilateral cooperation in the field of air transport. As NATO and the EU identified shortfalls in the domain of strategic transportation, initiatives were developed over the years, aiming at the highest degree of cooperation in a multinational command structure with an operational and a functional authority. The ground rules for EATC were set in September 2010 and EATC was inaugurated at Eindhoven air base by the four founding members, The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany.