Production of Airbus parts will only be modestly affected by a fire at its tier 1 supplier Premium AEROTEC, a company spokesperson tells AirInsight. “To the best of our present knowledge we do not expect any significant supply shortfalls towards Airbus”, Barbara Sagel says.
A fire raged late on Thursday night inside the Haunstetter plant near Augsburg (Bavaria). The affected area is the electroplating shop, “an important step in surface refinement in the production of detail parts of aluminium and titanium which will be implemented later in all kinds of larger airplane structures”. While the works fire brigade with assistance from the local brigade was quickly there to extinguish the flames, the electroplating system has been entirely destroyed, the company says. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Premium AEROTEC has electroplating shops in Bremen, Varel, and Bra?ov in Romania and will likely transfer work to there. The company is also viewing options to outsource to external companies that have offered help. As such production is expected to continue quickly.
Premium AEROTEC is a subsidiary to Airbus and has six production plants: Augsburg in the South of Germany, Hamburg, Varel, Bremen and Nordenham in the North and Bra?ov. According to the company’s website, the Augsburg plant has a staff of 4,000 to produce fuselage sections and structural components for civil and military aircraft, including all Airbus aircraft. The entire rear section of the A350-900 and -1000 is made in Augsburg, including CFRP side shells, door frame structures, and pressure bulkheads. The rear CFRP pressure bulkhead of the Boeing 787 is also done here. Augsburg also produces large components of the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft and centre fuselage sections of the Eurofighter.
Active as a journalist since 1987, with a background in newspapers, magazines, and a regional news station, Richard has been covering commercial aviation on a freelance basis since late 2016.
Richard is contributing to AirInsight since December 2018. He also writes for Airliner World, Aviation News, Piloot & Vliegtuig, and Luchtvaartnieuws Magazine. Twitter: @rschuur_aero.
