Engineering giant, GKN, will be buying part of the Airbus factory in Bristol for £136m, as per a deal announced a few days ago. Manufacturing operations at the Filton plant, which produces wing components for Airbus, will be acquired by GKN.

The deal was hailed as “fantastic news” for British manufacturing by the union group, Unite. The union claimed that the deal would help in securing the UK aerospace industry for decades. Airbus was engaged in negotiations over the deal with GKN for months, amidst speculations that a final decision was getting delayed over price and commitment to provide future work to the factory on its pending A350 aircraft. The sale of the factory was mooted by the parent company EADS as part of its restructuring programme.

According to the GKN chief executive, Sir Kevin Smith, acquisition of wing components and the assembly facilities at Filton was an exciting development in GKN’s aerospace business. Sir Kevin Smith added that strategic logic and a strong order backlog compelled a long-term business partnership of GKN with Airbus. He remarked the position of the A350 XWB created prospects of future growth at the leading edge of composite manufacturing technology.

Filton has already acquired excellence in the manufacture of Airbus’s metallic structures and GKN intends to invest more in operations to transform Filton into centre for serving global aerospace market for composite wing structures.

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