Skipness One Echo,
More urban myth!
A few facts;
Airbus at Toulouse is building forward fuselages for hundreds of Airbus airliners, they are also “assembling” the wide bodies. The actual aircraft is “built” all around Europe, with all of the wings, fuel systems, undercarriage systems for the entire range and every centre fuselage for the A321s all built, designed and engineered in the UK.
There is very little value add in the actual final assembly process, especially the way that Airbus builds aircraft. BAE were offered the A320 final assembly and turned it down as it was not high tech and nowhere near as beneficial to their technology as the wing design and build. Add to that the 300 UK companies who are suppliers to the Airbus programme.
Airbus by the way is not French, it is a consortium owned 80% by EADS, itself a multi-national consortium consisting of the French, germans, Italians and Spanish, and 20% by BAES.
BAE may have sold the 125 design to the US but the entire airframe is still built at Hawarden.
The future of Aerospace manufacturing is in systems, integration and design, all areas where the UK is world class. Take the US where even Boeing put up their aerostructures business for sale, GKN of the UK bought the military side at St.Louis but turned down the civil side at Seattle as there was not enough margin in it.
UK still has a larger Aerospace industry than any other country after the US in terms of turn over and numbers of people employed. With major investments in huge multi-national projects such as F-35, Typhoon, A380, A400M and as revealed this week R and D into future UCAV systems. Hang RR engines on the new Boeing 787 and with all the other UK content they are over 38% British, the same figures for the A380 is over 60%.
UK Aerospace is NOT all about BAES, don’t forget huge international players such as Smiths, Rolls-Royce, GKN and Meggit, without even mentioning world class players such as Martin Baker.
Industry is about far far more than mere assembly, genuine high margin high tech systems are the future, shareholder value demands a concentration there rather than assembly plants that look good but add nothing to your core competences, technology or future.
Fully awake and enjoying a latte…………………..