Legal challenge freezes Spain's Falcon and A310 maintenance tender, leaving Gestair Maintenance as sole remaining bidder

A legal challenge has placed Spain's military aircraft maintenance tender on hold after competing firms were eliminated from the procurement process, leaving Gestair Maintenance — owned by the Hyperion defence fund, of which former Partido Popular leader Pablo Casado is a founding partner — as the only remaining candidate. The challenge was filed on 22 September before Spain's Central Administrative Tribunal for Contractual Appeals (TACRC) by the joint venture Hispano Lusitana de Aviación. On 2 October, the TACRC granted a precautionary suspension covering Lot 1, which covers maintenance of the Falcon 900 and Airbus A310 fleets, while leaving Lot 2, covering the Cessna Citation V, unaffected.

Three companies had originally submitted bids for the 2026–2030 maintenance contract. The Hispano Lusitana de Aviación joint venture was disqualified after failing to meet the EASA 145 certification requirement, which obliges each member of a joint venture to hold individual EASA 145 certification for both line and base maintenance on the Falcon 900 and Airbus A310. European Aviation Competence Center GmbH was eliminated on 18 August for failing to rectify deficiencies in its documentation, including the absence of required quality certificates and an EASA 145 certificate for the Cessna Citation.

With the adjudication of Lot 1 officially suspended, the tribunal has requested urgent submission of the full procurement file and a report from the Ministry of Defence. The final ruling is pending. The overall programme for 2026–2030 carries an estimated value of 118.6 million euros, representing a 29.8% increase over the previous period. Within Lot 1, the budget share allocated exclusively to Falcon 900 maintenance has risen from 41% to 46%, bringing the Falcon-specific maintenance allocation to 33.8 million euros — an increase of 40.88% compared with the prior contract.

This case shows how a defence maintenance procurement can narrow from three bidders to one through certification and documentation elimination rather than through a straightforward price contest. EASA 145 line-and-base certification requirements for specific types — here the Falcon 900 and Airbus A310 — function as a hard gate in joint-venture bids, since the rule applies to every member of the consortium individually rather than to the group's combined capability.

In military and government maintenance contracting, a suspended lot does not resolve the underlying competitive question; it only pauses the award while a tribunal reviews the file. The budget shift toward Falcon 900-specific maintenance, up to 46% of Lot 1 and worth 33.8 million euros, raises the stakes of whichever outcome the TACRC reaches, since more of the programme's value now sits inside the contested lot than before.

The next dated step is the TACRC's review of the procurement file and the Ministry of Defence's report, which will determine whether Lot 1 proceeds with Gestair Maintenance as sole bidder or returns to a wider field.