Credit;PA
The government is reportedly considering invoking a clause from a 2008 contract to force an airline to operate its controversial Rwanda flights.
According to reports in The Times, AirTanker has been roped in to provide services for deportation flights after other carriers expressed an unwillingness to be involved over reputational damage concerns.
Even the country’s state-owned airline RwandaAir refused to get involved, despite the government claiming to be “proud” to be part of the scheme.
AirTanker is no stranger to the UK Government, having run flights for the Royal Air Force and the Ministry of Defence under contract since 2008.
Aviation news site AeroTime notes that, out of its current fleet of four Airbus A330-200s, three are operated for the Royal Air Force Air Command Division in a 320-seat passenger configuration and are predominately used for British troop-carrying sorties throughout the world.
The airline also shares an operating base with the RAF’s Air Command Division at RAF Brize Norton airbase in Oxfordshire, England, where the deportation flights could depart.
Ministers are confident deportation flights to Rwanda will take off this spring, despite the legislation underpinning the plan remaining in parliamentary deadlock.
Treasury minister Laura Trott said there were “many definitions of spring” when pressed about a timeline for getting planes off the runway.
The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill returns to the Commons on Wednesday, after the House of Lords again pressed demands for revisions, prolonging the parliamentary wrangling.
MPs are likely to reject these changes, meaning the legislation will be sent back to the Lords again.
The legislation seeks to clear the way to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats on a one-way flight to Kigali.
But it will only receive royal assent and become law once agreement between Parliament’s two houses is reached.
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