Some details gleaned from the Omega website - the company that established the business model that TMPS is following but with a bigger / better / higher capacity fleet.

Exactly as I surmised in my "Military AAR Explained" sticky, the civilian Omega tankers are used to facilitate training.

Better yet, there is this testimonial from USN Fleet Commander - USN Third Fleet: "Omega's 100% reliability provide the core refueling capacity around which the entire training is built. Without Omega, air strike warfare training would be significantly hindered".

There is no doubt in my mind that $TMPS would be able to undercut Omega's costs if necessary - it will probably not be necessary as there will always be plenty of available civilian contracted AAR work to go around - so they could charge the same and have a higher profit margin.

All $TMPS's Tristars are higher capacity / longer duration than the Omega B707s.

Therefore:

- Fewer tankers are required to deliver AAR to a given number of receivers.

- Less of the overall tanker fleet flying hours are spent in transit between their base and the AAR area.

- The overall fuel costs for tanker transits across the fleet are reduced.

- There are less take-offs and landings across the tanker fleet to deliver the same overall AAR task - thereby significantly reducing the cost of maintenance manhours and consumable items (tires, brakes). Consumption of aircraft fatigue life would also be reduced allowing the aircraft to stay in service longer.