India cancels Jaguar upgrade over Honeywell’s $2.4B price tag

The Indian Air Force has dropped its plan to upgrade 80 Jaguar ground-attack fighters with new engines over the cost provided by American firm Honeywell.

The service had planned to equip its Jaguar fighters with 280 new Honeywell-built F125IN turbofan engines, but the cost of some $2.4 billion was too expensive, a senior Air Force official said. The new engines were to be integrated on 80 Jaguars by Indian state-owned company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, which wanted $3.12 million per installation, an equally expensive ask, he added.

The Air Force in 2016 selected the F125IN on a single-vendor basis, and there were discussions to procure 280 of the turbofans (including 40 spare engines). The service wants to replace the Adour engine, which currently powers the Jaguar aircraft, with a higher-thrust engine to improve mission performance, particularly in medium- and high-level sorties, according to another Air Force official.