Airbus eyes Belfast wing plant put on sale by rival

AIRBUS is considering buying a rival aerospace company’s plant in Belfast.

Canadian group Bombardier said earlier this month that it would sell the site, putting 3,600 jobs at Northern Ireland’s biggest manufacturing site at risk.

The Belfast operation, which is known as Short Brothers, makes wings for Airbus’s A220 aircraft.

Airbus’s boss Guillaume Faury, who was appointed chief executive of the plane maker last month, said that taking over the Belfast plant was an option but there were a lot of alternatives the company would consider and it is still at an early stage of assessing what to do.

The 51-year-old said: ‘We will make sure that whatever happens preserves our interest.’

But Faury, an engineer by training, also said Airbus would be comfortable with the plant being run by another supplier.

Airbus aircraft are jointly made in factories across Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Its UK operations, which employ about 14,000 people, specialise in making wings.