# What is the RAF Voyager? The tanker plane at the centre of the Brize Norton case

> The Voyager is a converted Airbus A330 that carries troops and cargo and refuels other jets in mid-air. Two Voyagers were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in June 2025.

- URL: https://www.brizenortonfiles.com/articles/raf-voyager-aircraft-explained
- Published: 2026-11-08
- Author: Investigations Desk, The Brize Norton Files
- Topics: Explainers, AirTanker & PFI

## Key points

- The Voyager is a converted Airbus A330 airliner with Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines, used to carry troops and cargo and to refuel other aircraft in mid-air.
- The RAF's core Voyager fleet is nine aircraft. Losing two, ZZ338 and ZZ343, on 20 June 2025 removed over a fifth of that capacity at once.
- AirTanker, a private company, owns the Voyagers and provides them to the RAF under a PFI contract that runs to 2035.
- As far as research shows, Voyagers use only probe-and-drogue refuelling, which Israel's main fighter jets cannot use.

The RAF's core Voyager fleet is nine aircraft. Losing ZZ338 and ZZ343 on 20 June 2025 removed over a fifth of that capacity at once.

## What does a Voyager do?

The Voyager is a converted Airbus A330 airliner with Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines. The RAF uses it to carry troops and cargo, and to refuel other aircraft in mid-air, known as air-to-air refuelling. Planes from Brize Norton regularly fly to [RAF Akrotiri](https://www.brizenortonfiles.com/bases/akrotiri) in Cyprus, Britain's main base for operations in the Middle East.

## How many Voyagers does the RAF have?

| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Core fleet | Nine aircraft |
| Registrations in the fleet listing | ZZ330 to ZZ338 and ZZ343, ten in total |
| Squadrons | 10 and 101 Squadrons, based at Brize Norton |
| Owner | AirTanker Ltd, not the MoD |
| Availability | 96%, a figure the company is judged on, according to the hosts of The High Ground podcast |
| Cyprus | AirTanker keeps two permanent operating bases there, according to the same podcast |

The fleet listing shows ten registrations against a core fleet of nine. The sources used here do not say which of the ten are core aircraft and which are surge aircraft.

## Who owns and runs the Voyagers?

AirTanker, a private company partly owned by Airbus, owns the Voyagers. The contract was signed in March 2008 under a [private finance initiative](https://www.brizenortonfiles.com/articles/airtanker-voyager-pfi-contract) and runs to 2035. AirTanker's building at Brize Norton houses the two Voyager squadrons, 10 and 101 Squadrons, above company staff and RAF engineers. The rest of the fleet is covered in [the ownership article](https://www.brizenortonfiles.com/articles/who-owns-the-raf-planes).

## What happened to the two damaged Voyagers?

The MoD has confirmed that the two damaged planes were ZZ338 and ZZ343. It told Declassified UK that ZZ343 was undergoing routine maintenance and was not in regular service. Flight tracking, however, shows that it had flown operations from Akrotiri for most of the previous four weeks, and that it landed at Brize Norton at 13:57 on 19 June, hours before the protest. Maintenance may have started on landing, so the record does not prove the MoD's statement false, but the MoD has not explained the flight record.

Flight records show ZZ338 flying again on 1 July 2025 and ZZ343 flying to Akrotiri on 12 July, 22 days after the protest. AirTanker's chief executive, Mark Alexander, said on a podcast: "We recovered that in less than 21 days." Details are in [the flight records](https://www.brizenortonfiles.com/articles/voyagers-zz338-zz343-flight-records) and [the return to service](https://www.brizenortonfiles.com/articles/voyagers-back-in-service-21-days).

## Can a Voyager refuel Israeli jets?

Palestine Action claims that Voyagers refuelled Israeli, British and American jets. Its original source is not known, and the claim is contested. As far as research shows, RAF Voyagers have only the probe-and-drogue method. Israel's main fighter jets, the F-15, F-16 and F-35I, can only be refuelled by boom. On that technical basis, Voyagers could not refuel those jets, although they could refuel US Navy and Marine jets, which use probes.

Other documented links do not depend on refuelling: flights between Akrotiri and Gaza, and Israeli military planes that used Brize Norton. The [refuelling claim](https://www.brizenortonfiles.com/articles/could-raf-voyagers-refuel-israeli-jets) is examined in its own article.

## Questions and answers

**What is an RAF Voyager?**

A tanker and transport conversion of the Airbus A330 airliner, flown from Brize Norton by 10 and 101 Squadrons.

**How many Voyagers does the RAF have?**

The core fleet is nine aircraft. The Flightradar24 listing shows ten Voyager registrations: ZZ330 to ZZ338 and ZZ343.

**Can Voyagers refuel Israeli fighter jets?**

The claim is contested. As far as research shows, Voyagers use only probe-and-drogue refuelling, while the F-15, F-16 and F-35I can only be refuelled by boom. Palestine Action's original source for the claim is not known.

## Sources

1. [Pro-Palestinian activists damage planes on UK air force base](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/20/world/pro-palestinian-activists-damage-planes-uk-air-force-base) — Associated Press via Boston Globe, 2025-06-20
2. [Brize Norton protest dilemma](https://euro-sd.com/2025/06/major-news/45121/brize-norton-protest-dilemma/) — European Security & Defence, 2025-06
3. [Booms, probes & PFIs: future of UK air refuelling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=offISG_aZF4) — The High Ground, 2025-09-25
4. [How much damage did Palestine Action really do at Brize Norton?](https://www.declassifieduk.org/how-much-damage-did-palestine-action-really-do-at-brize-norton/) — Declassified UK, 2025-11-13
5. Flightradar24 flight histories — Flightradar24