Which countries publish official availability and mission-capable rates for their Gripen fleets?
Executive summary
Few public sources show governments publishing formal, regular “availability” or “mission-capable” (MC) rates for their Gripen fleets; Sweden’s official reporting on Gripen readiness is the clearest example in the available material, and Saab and industry pieces frequently tout high availability but do not substitute for government-published MC statistics [1] [2]. Independent or journalistic analyses cite actual availability numbers or discuss availability problems — for example a Swedish government report noted falling Gripen flight hours and supply-chain pressures that reduced sortie generation [3] [4].
1. Sweden: the clearest public actor on Gripen readiness
Sweden appears in the available reporting as the principal state actor that both commissions official work to maintain Gripen availability and is the subject of government reporting on fleet readiness: Saab’s contract news about FMV buying equipment to “ensure full availability” of Sweden’s Gripen C/D fleet signals an official effort to measure and sustain readiness [1]. Independent reporting on Sweden’s armed forces annual report documented declining Gripen flight hours and linked that to supplier shortages and personnel shortfalls — a government-sourced dataset treated as an official indicator of operational availability [3]. Sweden also allocated SEK 5.8 billion focused in part on “operational availability” of JAS 39 fighters, an explicit budgetary recognition of readiness metrics [4].
2. Saab and vendor materials: high availability claims but not official MC statistics
Saab’s product pages and press releases repeatedly assert the Gripen’s design emphasis on high availability, easy maintenance and predictable operating costs — corporate claims about availability that are not the same as government-published MC rates [2] [1]. Saab’s press release on equipment orders frames the purchases as securing “full availability” [1]. These sources provide manufacturer perspective and figures but do not constitute independent, periodic government MC-rate publication [2] [1].
3. Independent analysts and specialist outlets: reported availability figures, but not always sourced to official national statistics
Niche defence websites and analyst pieces publish “actual availability” estimates and comparative studies (for example an analysis of F-22, Rafale, Su-35 and Gripen E availability), which supply numbers and technical causes — these are useful but often rely on a mix of public reports, industry claims and analyst judgement rather than named, recurring national MC-statistics [5]. Such outlets can reveal discrepancies between vendor claims and reported operational performance, but they are not formal government publications [5].
4. Other Gripen operators: evidence gaps in official publication
Brazil, the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa, Thailand and others are recurring Gripen operators or customers in the supplied reporting, but available sources do not show these governments systematically publishing fleet-wide, periodic mission-capable or availability rates in a way comparable to Sweden’s reporting cited above [6] [7] [8] [9]. Press coverage records purchases, deliveries and strategic decisions, but “available sources do not mention” routine, public MC-rate tables from those nations.
5. Where claims conflict — vendor optimism vs. government operational realities
Saab and promotional material stress the Gripen’s designed-for-availability features and low operating costs [2]. Independent and government reporting from Sweden illustrates the counterpoint: supply-chain problems, pilot shortages and technical personnel shortfalls reduced flight hours and strained availability in practice [3] [4]. Analysts publishing comparative availability rates may side with either perspective depending on data access [5]. Readers should note that vendor claims and independent/government operational metrics can diverge; the Swedish government reporting and Saab procurement notices together show both promise and short-term constraints [1] [3].
6. What this means for your query: answering “which countries publish”
Based on the documents provided, Sweden is the principal country for which official reporting and budgetary action explicitly tied to Gripen operational availability appears in public sources [1] [4] [3]. Saab and independent analysts publish availability claims and estimates, but other current Gripen operators mentioned in the available sources do not appear to be routinely publishing formal national MC-rate statistics in the same way — “available sources do not mention” other governments publishing periodic, official mission-capable tables for their Gripen fleets [2] [5] [7].
Limitations and next steps: the supplied search results are selective and include corporate, journalistic and specialist-analyst pieces rather than a comprehensive sweep of all defence ministry publications. To be definitive beyond Sweden would require checking defence ministry annual reports, parliamentary budgets and air force readiness publications from each Gripen operator — documents not provided in the current set of sources.