The activities proposed hereafter are still subject to the adoption of the financing decision ECHO/WWD/ BUD/2015/01000
AMOUNT: EUR 12 000 000
0 . MAJOR CHANGES SINCE PREVIOUS VERSION OF THE HIP ECHO Flight annual budget is around around € 11.5 M for 12 months for Kenya and DRC only. Early 2014, ECHO Flight has also offered air transport services in Mali and Chad. Since 01/01/2015 ECHO Flight is still present in 3 countries as the Chad operation has been closed end of 2014. The initial 2015 budget allocation of € 6.79 M does not allow covering the needs till the end of 2015. ECHO partners are requesting more and more the services of ECHO Flight in particular in Mali and Kenya, while the activity in DRC remains very high with 3 planes covering the regions where ECHO is funding projects, notably with an increased focus on Katanga, which require additional efforts from ECHO-Flight. The security and state of local infrastructures are the main reasons of having ECHO Flight and the situation related to these two aspects are certainly not going to improve in 2015. On the contrary, they have deteriorated in Mali and Kenya. It is therefore expected that ECHO Flight services will be necessary throughout 2015. To cover the operational needs until the end of January 2016 (ECHO Flight contract cannot end on 31/12/2015 for practical reasons linked to the continuity of the service contract and the non-retroactivity option), a total of € 12 M are required. This amount also takes into account 40 additional flying hours/month for Mali.
The additional amount of € 5.21 M will allow the ECHO Flight operations in 3 countries to be implemented for 10 months till 31/01/2016
