US Navy awards HII contract modification to fund new Kennedy delivery …

The USN awarded HII a contract modification to fund the new delivery schedule for carrier John F Kennedy . (Michael Fabey)

The US Navy (USN) awarded HII a USD274 million fixed-price incentive (firm target) modification and a USD119.2 million cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-plus-incentive-fee modification for the Ford-class aircraft carrier, John F Kennedy (CVN 79), on 23 June to help fund the carrier's new delivery schedule changes.

Officially, the contract modifications are meant to “improve capability at ship delivery, define unpriced change orders, and for additional engineering and integrated logistics support” for work on John F Kennedy at HII's Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia, according to contract details released by the Pentagon.

The anticipated delivery date for John F Kennedy is being pushed back to help meet the new USN Post Shakedown Availability (PSA) plan for aircraft carriers. The service anticipates more operationally capable ships at delivery and there is no expected changes for vessel deployment or related operations, programme officials told Janes .

“CVN 79 delivery date is being adjusted to July 2025 to support a revised ship delivery/post-delivery strategy,” the USN said in proposed fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget documents released by the navy in March.

“The navy is implementing a strategy to pull baseline work from the Post Shakedown Availability into the construction period in order to provide more capability at ship delivery,” the USN said. The new date is about a year later than the USN had recently marked as a delivery date.