The Andalusian aerospace sector has experienced a great semester of strategic decisions that will mark its immediate future and that have culminated this week with two important announcements by Airbus at the Paris Air Show, which is held in the town of Le Bourget and which come to confirm the takeoff of the sector worldwide and the heavy workload that is expected in Andalusia. In this region, the European giant has four plants: San Pablo and Tablada, in Seville, and Puerto Real and El Puerto de Santa María, in Cádiz, with more than 2,000 direct employees.. In addition, Airbus has its large headquarters in Getafe and another plant in Illescas..
On the one hand, the low-cost Indian company IndiGo confirmed this week the largest contract in the history of commercial aviation, by ordering Airbus to manufacture 500 A320 aircraft, adding to other previous orders and increasing the number of aircraft contracted up to 1,330, becoming the world's largest client of this type of aircraft.
The president of the Airbus works council at the national level, Francisco Sanjosé, explained to EFE that the Airbus Cádiz plant, which will result from the merger of the two factories that the company has in the province, will be the most benefited of the Spanish ones due to this contract, since the fuselage of the A320 and other components are built in it. Thus, the Puerto Real factory manufactures its tail rudder, while the El Puerto factory manufactures the “fan cowl” or engine covers.. In addition, the Altesis Aerospace plant (one of the main supplier companies or tier1), in Puerto Real, is in charge of developing its stabilizers..
This mega-contract is in addition to the one that another company from the same country, Air India, ordered in February, consisting of 470 aircraft, of which 250 were assigned to the Airbus A320 model and the rest to its North American competitor Boeing.. These orders guarantee “at least” the workload until 2035, dates in which it must deliver the 500 single-aisle A320 family aircraft.
In any case, and despite these new contracts, Airbus maintains its roadmap for the closure of the Puerto Real plant and the concentration of all its workers in the old CBC (Bahía de Cádiz Center), now renamed Airbus Cádiz, located in El Puerto de Santa María, where the company will expand its facilities by 4,000 square meters to accommodate its new civil aircraft programs, while military aircraft components are already being diverted to the San Pablo and Tablada plants.
In these Sevillian factories they have also received with great joy the second announcement of the week: the Spanish Government has also confirmed at this same aeronautical fair, one of the most important in the world, that it will invest 1,730 million euros in the purchase of 16 military aircraft C295, whose final assembly is carried out at the Tablada plant in Seville. Specifically, the Ministry of Defense will order 10 units of the C295 MSA version for Maritime Patrol and another 4 of the C295 MPA model for Maritime Surveillance..
The sale of these units to the Spanish Government reinforces the success of the C295, the most Sevillian aircraft, which already has 280 orders from 39 commercial operators. Two months ago, Airbus delivered the first of the 50 aircraft of this model that the Indian Government has contracted and which will be an important milestone, since only 16 of these units will be made in Spain, while the remaining 40 will be made in the country itself. Asian country with the technology of the European giant.
The Paris Air Show 2023 has served to verify that the great pothole of the pandemic is over and that both commercial aviation and the aeronautical industries return to the expected path. Just before the covid, the two world aviation giants, the American Boeing and the European Airbus, made their forecasts for 2038 and indicated that the market would go from the current 23,000 aircraft to a global fleet of about 48,000.. Both estimated that in the next 20 years some 40,000 aircraft would be built, worth some five billion euros.. The arrival of the pandemic raised fears that nothing would ever be the same in international travel, but the vaccines and the opening of the global opening have not only restored hope, but have allowed the recovery, expected in about five years, to take off. accelerate in just two.
In Andalusia, the aerospace sector closed the year 2022 with a turnover and employment much higher than in 2021. Sales stood at 2,356 million euros, with a rise of 17% compared to the previous year (2,002 million). In the same way, employment also grew, reaching 13,136 direct jobs, which is 8% more than in 2021..
Despite this growth, compared to the pre-pandemic data, current billing is still 17% below the billing data for 2019 and employment 9% below. However, the sector assumes that in this year 2023 it will recover and exceed the pre-pandemic data.
The Andalusian aeronautical sector is made up of 143 companies located mostly on the Seville-Cádiz axis, although they also have a presence in Malaga, which continue to be excessively dependent on Airbus programs, although some also work for Boeing or Embraer.
The other great news for this regional industry has been the assignment to Seville of the headquarters of the Spanish Space Agency (AEE), which has already begun to take its first steps in the Andalusian capital, from where investments of 700 million euros will be managed. , according to its director, Miguel Belló.
Administrations and businessmen underline the synergies of both sectors, the aeronautical, with a tradition of more than a century and very consolidated, and the space, still incipient, but which is showing great dynamism and strength, especially in the satellite sector..
The managing director of the Andalucía Aerospace cluster does not hesitate to point out to El Confidencial that “the new contract announced between IndiGo and Airbus this week is undoubtedly great news because it represents an important boost to the sector, and it is further proof that we are following this path post-pandemic recovery. Andalusian companies are already participating in this important civil program for the A320, and this historic macro contract is a great incentive to have good prospects for the future in terms of the Andalusian aerospace sector,” he says..
On the other hand, he believes that the designation of Seville as the headquarters of the Spanish Space Agency “will allow the sector to take off in the region, since it will be possible to take advantage of synergies with existing technological capacities”. In addition, he explains that the most important initiative promoted by the cluster is the implementation of the Andalusat project, a satellite system that will be developed using, preferably, the technological capacities of companies in the community..
The managing director of the Federation of Metal Entrepreneurs of Seville (Fedeme), Carlos Jacinto, expresses himself in a similar line, who underlines the “magnificent news that we have known this week in Paris”, since they will allow the arrival of more workload for the Andalusian Airbus plants and for supplier and subcontractor companies. The Sevillian employers' association has repeatedly warned of the need to promote training, given the current problems of hiring specialized personnel to carry out the programs of the aerospace industry. This same week, the president of Confemetal, José Miguel Guerrero, went to Seville to meet, together with other representatives of the sector, with the Employment Minister of the Junta de Andalucía, Rocío Blanco, who was demanded to urgently launch new specific training plans to avoid problems of lack of capacity to meet the workload expected in the coming years.