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On the Record
Johan Lehander, Managing Director, Gripen International
Johan Lehander is a new face at the helm of Gripen International, but he’s no stranger to the program. Lehander took over from Ian McNamee (who has moved upstairs to a seat on the Saab board) in April and brought with him over 20 years of fighter engineering expertise at Saab. He has worked on the Viggen and Gripen — he was the JAS 39A program manager at one time — and has plenty of business expertise away from the design office and production line.
His assessment of the market stretching out in front of him is positive. “We can win a few more customers in Central Europe, it’s just a question of who will be first (with a requirement). Further east there’s India and Thailand. We have been doing a lot in Thailand this year — they are a serious prospect. It’s hard to give a timescale but all the initiative has been coming from their side. In India we answered the RFI in 2004 and an RFP is expected this year. They are still talking about 126 aircraft there.”
Much speculation previously surrounded a possible deal with Pakistan, a deal for which senior figures at Gripen International was once strongly in favour of. A U.S. offer of F-16s to Pakistan has killed off that prospect and Lehander says that Gripen’s attention is focussed only on India now. “I’m not sure it’s possible to play both sides of the fence in that part of the world. For sure the U.S. offer of F-16s didn’t help our chances in Pakistan, but I don’t think it’s helped their chances in India either.”
High hopes of a win in Brazil were dashed earlier this year when the FX-BR competition there was finally halted after ever-increasing delays. The Gripen is still in the picture however. “It’s going to be four or five years before Brazil gets to buy a new aircraft, “ says Lehander “and Sweden is still active there in offering a short-term solution. That would be a lease of ten or 12 JAS 39As. We want to stay with the Brazilian Air Force and win the ‘real’ order. Venezuela is also cited as a customer that’s “in the picture but not a near-term campaign.”
Back in Europe Bulgaria seems to be top of Gripen’s list. “They have not presented a procurement timetable yet because they’ve been meeting other priorities and buying in other areas. But we think they will continue to do what they’ve said they will do — and procure new aircraft. The question for us is, will it be new aircraft or a government-to-government lease?”
“We are also looking to Romania and Slovakia. The Slovakian Defense Ministry said recently that flying their MiGs was five times more expensive then Gripens,” Lehander added. —Robert Hewson
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