The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is expensive, but the real question is not whether it is “expensive” in absolute terms: the key is to know what is being measured. An annualized hour of maintenance, an hour of carrier strike group deployment and an hour of Rafale flight time do not cover the same expenses.

To understand the real cost of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, several orders of magnitude therefore need to be reconstructed. The French Ministry for the Armed Forces puts its operational maintenance at about €100 million per year, excluding major technical overhauls. A press estimate meanwhile gives €50,000 per hour for deployment of the full carrier strike group. And the French Air and Space Force uses €20,000 for one hour of Rafale flight time. These figures should not automatically be added together.

How much does one hour of Charles de Gaulle really cost?

The most solid figure is for MCO, maintenance in operational condition: about €100 million per year, excluding ATM major overhauls, at 2022 economic conditions. If this budget is simply divided by the 8,760 hours in a year, the result is about €11,400 per calendar hour.

This calculation is useful for providing a sense of scale, but it should never be presented as the price of an hour of combat. The ship does not spend the whole year on operations, and MCO costs also exist when it is not deployed. It is therefore an averaged hourly cost, not a combat bill.

At the other end of the spectrum, a published press estimate puts deployment of the carrier strike group, meaning the aircraft carrier and its escort, at €50,000 per hour. This figure is closer to the idea of “power projection”: on operations, Charles de Gaulle does not sail alone. Frigates, a nuclear submarine and a replenishment ship are part of the force, together with their crews.

This €50,000-per-hour estimate should be handled with caution: unlike the official €100 million annual MCO figure, it is not formally established. Over 24 hours, it represents €1.2 million; over 30 continuous days, €36 million. Compared with France’s annual €1 billion budget devoted to overseas operations, that theoretical month would represent about 3.6% of the total. By contrast, no serious ratio to GDP or the total military budget can be built without a consistent numerical basis.

Heavy maintenance completely changes the picture

Charles de Gaulle follows a maintenance cycle heavily constrained by its nuclear propulsion. Two major technical overhauls are spaced about 90 months apart, or 7.5 years, with six intermediate technical stops occurring roughly annually during the cycle.

The first two ATM overhauls together represented about €650 million at 2022 economic conditions. A simple arithmetic average gives €325 million per ATM. This is not a forecast of the next overhaul, scheduled for 2028 and still under assessment.

The reasoning can be taken further with a deliberately simple averaging method: €325 million spread across a 7.5-year cycle equals about €43.3 million per year. Added to the €100 million in annual routine MCO, that would give a theoretical order of magnitude of about €143 million per year, or roughly €16,400 per calendar hour. This is not an official budget calculation: it is only intended to show the effect of the heavy-maintenance cycle on long-term economic cost.

How much does an air sortie from the carrier cost?

Another common source of confusion is attributing the cost of the aircraft to the carrier itself. A Rafale sortie is an additional layer of expense. In 2024, the French Air and Space Force assessed one hour of Rafale flight time at €20,000.

Based on that figure, a three-hour sortie works out arithmetically to €60,000 per Rafale, excluding weapons expended. For six aircraft flying three hours each, the theoretical flight cost reaches €360,000. Again, that amount should not simply be added to the €50,000-per-hour carrier strike group estimate without knowing exactly what is included in the latter figure.

The cost of munitions can quickly transform the bill: available estimates put one missile at €1 million to €3 million each. A real combat mission can therefore cost far more than a simple multiplication of flight hours.

A cleaner air-power comparison than comparing ships

To compare equipment without inventing an hourly price for American or British aircraft carriers, the fairest approach is to start from published flight-hour costs. For a standardized three-hour mission, purely to provide a sense of scale:

  • Rafale: €60,000 for three hours based on €20,000 per hour.
  • U.S. A-10: €66,000 based on €22,000 per hour.
  • U.S. F-35: €123,000 based on €41,000 per hour.
  • U.S. F-22: €249,000 based on €83,000 per hour.
  • U.S. B-1: €507,000 based on €169,000 per hour.

These aircraft do not have the same missions or constraints, and some are not carrier-based. The comparison therefore does not measure equal effectiveness; it only places hourly orders of magnitude in context.

What about U.S. and British aircraft carriers?

No directly comparable hourly cost or maintenance cycle is established here for a Nimitz, a Gerald R. Ford or a British Queen Elizabeth-class carrier.

The United States operates 11 aircraft carriers, but without a consistent budget methodology, comparing their spending with a French MCO figure would create false precision. The same problem applies to the United Kingdom: it is better to acknowledge the limit than to manufacture a ranking.

The key rule is simple: a cost only makes sense when its scope is known. The Rafale itself was assessed at €35,000 per hour of support in 2004, €14,596 per hour for scheduled maintenance in 2014, then €20,000 per flight hour in 2024. These values do not necessarily contradict one another; they simply do not measure exactly the same thing.

So, is France getting value for money?

Charles de Gaulle primarily buys a capability: the ability to move a complete combat aviation force without depending on a nearby land-based airfield. It can carry up to around forty aircraft, including Rafale Marine fighters, helicopters and airborne early-warning aircraft, while operating with its escort and support assets.

Economically, the right way to read the figure is therefore not “€50,000 an hour for a ship.” It is the price of a power-projection system combining a nuclear aircraft carrier, carrier aviation, frigates, a submarine, a replenishment ship and their crews. The bill is high, but what is being paid for is also much broader than the hull of Charles de Gaulle alone.

For deterrence, none of the figures cited makes it possible to isolate a specific economic value for the aircraft carrier or calculate a “return on investment.” For power projection, however, the funded capability is directly visible: moving a complete naval aviation force and its aircraft at sea.

The most useful comparison is not the isolated ship, but the service delivered: how much does it cost to be able to launch combat aircraft, with protection, replenishment and command, far from national territory?

From the available figures, three benchmarks can be retained: about €11,400 per hour for annual MCO averaged over time excluding ATM, about €16,400 per hour if a theoretical averaging of past major overhauls is added, and €50,000 per hour as a press estimate for the deployed carrier strike group. For an air sortie, a Rafale flying for three hours represents about €60,000 before weapons.

These orders of magnitude, more than slogans describing an aircraft carrier as “too expensive” or “indispensable,” help explain what France is actually paying for when it talks about power projection.