15 March 2024

Pentagon budget 2025: Aircraft carrier industry supporters warn of impacts of schedule shifts

by Michael Fabey

With the keel being laid in 2022 for carrier Enterprise , the expected delivery date for the ship was scheduled for March 2028. The ship is now to be delivered in September 2029. (Janes/Michael Fabey)

Industry supporters caution that any delays in the previously planned acquisition schedules of aircraft carriers could have a cascading effect on cost and schedule in the wake of proposed carrier schedule changes in the proposed US Navy's (USN's) fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget, released on 11 March.

“Overall, changes to a shipbuilding plan do not help the industrial base, they harm it,” Lisa Papini, president and CEO of Dante Valve Company and chair of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition (ACIBC), told Janes on 13 March.

“They inject inconsistency and uncertainty that cause companies to rethink their existing shipbuilding plans,” she said. “They cause a company to rethink whether they want to invest in navy shipbuilding because the work may or may not occur. It disincentives investment.”

CVN 82, which was slated to be acquired in FY 2028 in a five-year Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), is no longer listed for acquisition in that year, nor in the FYDP in the FY 2025 request, which ends in FY 2029, according to the FY 2025 request.

CVN 82 acquisition is being shifted to FY 2030, Rear Admiral Ben Reynolds, deputy assistant secretary of the navy for budget and director of the USN Fiscal Management Division, said during an embargoed 8 March briefing on the proposed budget.

The delivery date for carrier Enterprise (CVN 80) “shifted from March 2028 to September 2029 due to delays in material availability and industry/supply chain performance”, according to budget documents.

Industry supporters caution that any delays in the previously planned acquisition schedules of aircr...

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