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441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

October 30, 2013

Congressional Committees

Military Airlift: DOD Plans to Participate in Multi-National Program to Exchange Air Services with 

European Nations

This report formally transmits the enclosed briefing in response to section 1276 of the National 

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, which mandates that we conduct a review of 

the Air Transport, Air-to-Air Refueling and Other Exchange of Services (ATARES) program.1

ATARES is a European program through which member nations use a system of credits and 

debits2 to facilitate sharing of air force-related services—such as troop and cargo airlift—without 

monetary transactions. ATARES is managed by the Movement Coordination Centre Europe 

(MCCE), a multi-national organization established in July 2007 to coordinate and optimize the 

use of airlift, sealift, and land movement assets owned or leased by member nations’ militaries. 

The Department of Defense (DOD) is not a member of ATARES but is seeking to join the 

program. DOD is a member of MCCE and pays a fee for this membership; there is no additional 

fee to become a member of ATARES. Currently, because DOD is not a member of ATARES, it 

utilizes Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements to exchange services with other nations—

including ATARES member nations—often through monetary transactions.3 DOD believes it 

would benefit from membership in ATARES and requested approval from Congress in 2011 to 

participate in the program. 

Our objectives were to determine (1) the types of services exchanged through ATARES, (2) the

extent to which information is available to determine whether ATARES is achieving its intended 

purposes, and (3) the extent to which information is available on the cost-effectiveness of 

ATARES. Enclosure 1 details the results of our review based on our briefing to your offices on 

September 10, 2013. 

To address our objectives, we visited U.S. European Command (EUCOM) in Stuttgart, 

Germany, and MCCE headquarters in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, to interview officials 

knowledgeable about the ATARES program and to gather documentation and information about

the program’s operations. EUCOM officials provided us with documentation on how they are 

currently exchanging air force-related services, including information on EUCOM’s participation 

in Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements. MCCE provided relevant ATARES-related 

documents, including the Technical Arrangement and Technical Arrangement Annexes, which 

are the primary documents used to manage the ATARES program. We also reviewed 

information about ATARES provided by MCCE, such as briefing slides, joining documentation, 

 

1

See Pub. L. No. 112-239, § 1276(f) (2013). 

2

A member nation receives credits for services provided to another nation and accrues debits for services provided to 

it by another member nation.

3

Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements are international agreements used by DOD to acquire and/or provide 

logistic support, supplies, and services to/from eligible countries and international organizations.
Page 2 GAO-14-30R Military Airlift

and meeting minutes. In order to assess the extent to which information was available to 

determine whether ATARES is achieving its intended purposes and to assess the extent to 

which information was available on the cost-effectiveness of ATARES, we submitted a set of 

questions to officials at MCCE and to all 20 ATARES member nations and received written 

responses from MCCE, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Sweden, and the United 

Kingdom. We also interviewed knowledgeable officials from U.S. Transportation Command, 

U.S. Africa Command, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the Joint Staff, 

and the Department of State to obtain their perspectives on ATARES. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2013 to October 2013 in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and 

perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained 

provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

In summary, several air force-related services are exchanged through ATARES, including air 

transport, air-to-air refueling, maritime patrol, search and air rescue, and strategic air medical 

evacuation. Since 2001, air transport and air-to-air refueling have comprised more than 80 

percent of the services exchanged within the program. ATARES services are exchanged when 

a request made by one member nation is accepted and executed by another. Member nations 

report their transactions to MCCE, and MCCE uses this information to track services exchanged 

through ATARES. 

Neither MCCE nor any of the ATARES member nations we met with or received written 

responses from has conducted comprehensive analyses to assess whether the ATARES 

program as a whole is achieving its intended purposes. However, some program- and missionlevel data on ATARES is collected and tracked, and member nations identified several benefits 

from the program.

4

Neither ATARES officials nor member nations we met with or received written responses from

had performed comprehensive analyses to assess the overall cost-effectiveness of the program, 

but some data on cost savings were available. MCCE reported some cost savings identified by 

member nations. For example, the United Kingdom and Sweden reported savings, estimating 

that they each had saved $1.5 million by using the program. Additionally, Belgium and Turkey 

MCCE uses the data member nations report about their exchanges of 

services to ensure that members are operating according to the parameters set by the 

Technical Arrangement and Annexes to which each member agrees before joining the program. 

For example, MCCE monitors each nation’s balance of credits and debits to ensure that it is not 

exceeding the 500-hour debit limit on equivalent flying hours set in the annexes to the ATARES 

Technical Arrangement. MCCE also collects data pertaining to the number of requests and data 

about mission details, such as the type of asset being used and type of cargo being transported.

In addition, MCCE officials stated that member nations appear to benefit from access to

additional flight routes, assets, and services. Our audit work identified several benefits that the 

member nations have attained through participation in ATARES, including saving time and 

money by efficiently using aircraft assets and increasing cooperation among nations. Although 

DOD has not yet begun to participate in ATARES, DOD officials stated that the department has 

several of its own intended purposes for participating in the program, including leveraging empty 

space on its flights and enhancing multi-national relationships within the European Command 

area of responsibility. 

 

4

GAO did not assess the reliability of the data because they did not materially affect the findings, conclusions, or 

recommendations of this report.
Page 3 GAO-14-30R Military Airlift

reported that they had saved $71,000 and $256,000, respectively, on specific missions by 

exchanging services through ATARES. These estimates were provided to us by officials in other 

countries, and we were not given the data or calculations that had been used to produce them. 

As a result, we did not assess the reliability of the data used or the credibility of these savings 

estimates. For additional information on the results of our work, see enclosure I, slide 11.

We requested comments from DOD and MCCE, but none were provided. DOD and MCCE 

provided technical comments that we incorporated into this report where applicable.

* * * *

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees. We are also 

sending copies to the Commanders of EUCOM, U.S. Transportation Command, and U.S. Africa 

Command; the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and 

the Secretary of State. This report also is available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

Should you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please contact me at (202) 

512-5431 or russellc@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and 

Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report were

Kimberly Seay, Assistant Director; Edward Anderson; Joanne Landesman; Lisa McMillen; Carol 

Petersen; Michael Shaughnessy; Mike Silver; Yong Song; and Amie Steele. 

Cary Russell

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management

Enclosure 
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List of Committees

The Honorable Carl Levin 

Chairman 

The Honorable James Inhofe 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Dick Durbin

Chairman 

The Honorable Thad Cochran

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Defense

Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate

The Honorable Howard P. “Buck” McKeon 

Chairman 

The Honorable Adam Smith 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Chairman

The Honorable Pete Visclosky

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Defense

Committee on Appropriations 

House of Representatives
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Enclosure

GAO Presentation to Congressional Committees 
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