Day after day international support and more particularly European support to "Operation Serval" is increasing. In accordance with its primary vocation, EATC was naturally solicited regarding logistical support to this mission. To this day, close to 40 “inter-theater” transport missions have been conducted under the operational control of the EATC. This activity, adding up to the missions carried out by the EATC to support the French, German, Dutch and Belgian forces posted in Afghanistan, or more recently to support NATO operation “Active Fence Turkey” involving the Netherlands and Germany in Turkey, represents nearly 20% of the EATC’s daily activity.
German C-160 will very soon be at UNO’s disposal to transport African conscripts to Mali, deployed regarding the setting up of ECOWAS. A Dutch DC10, offering multirole capabilities, is waiting to be engaged. Talking about Strategic Air Transport: Since the beginning of the operation, around 20 missions of the EATC together with its Partner Nations have been conducted so far - and this represents a total of about 60% in logistical support between France and the African theatre.
One can see EATC is not just a multinational body – in fact, it is also part of every Partner Nations chain of command for military Air Transport. EATC will continue to operate a 24/7 - control of the military air means handed to by 4 of its 5 Participating Nations in regard to the logistical manoeuvre between Europe and the African theater involved in “Operation Serval”.