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November 11, 2024

CT manufacturers eager to start, deepen business ties with plane-making giant Airbus

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED State economic development commissioner Daniel O’Keefe, Airbus North America CEO Robin Hayes, Gov. Ned Lamont and Chief Manufacturing Officer Paul Lavoie in Hartford.
By Harriet Jones

“It takes years to develop an aerospace customer,” said Haley Nemeth.

She is the third generation to work in her family’s rubber-sealing business, Jonal Laboratories, founded by her grandfather in the 1960s.

So far, this 100-person Meriden business is doing well with those relationships — it already works with Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky and Boeing.

Haley Nemeth

Nemeth was among 100 attendees at a recent conference in Hartford hoping to land another big client — European giant Airbus.

“It’s invaluable for us to be in rooms like this with the biggest OEMs in the world,” said Nemeth. “It takes a very long time to get to the top aerospace companies. You don’t just knock on the door and start a business transaction. You build a relationship.”

The new CEO of Airbus North America, Robin Hayes, brought a team of top executives to the state Department of Economic and Community Development’s downtown Hartford offices in late October, expressly to start those conversations with potential new suppliers.

“Commercial aviation in the world will double in the next 20 years, and so there’s a huge future need,” Hayes said. “The first issue is ramping up the supply chain so we can meet the current demand. Connecticut has an incredibly rich history in aerospace, so they’re really well positioned.”

North American investment

The Airbus team briefed attendees on the aerospace giant’s changing procurement needs across its commercial and military platforms, and conducted one-on-one meetings with local companies during the day-long event.

Airbus, with its global headquarters in France, has been making increased investments in North America in recent years. The company now directly employs around 5,000 people in the U.S.

Its commercial manufacturing facility in Mobile, Alabama is in the midst of a two-year plan to double production space. The company also supports helicopter manufacturing and assembly facilities in Texas and Mississippi, and a satellite manufacturing facility in Florida, among several other locations.

But despite these expansions, Hayes noted that Airbus is building fewer planes than it had targeted this year, precisely because of supply chain issues.

“Parts of the supply chain have still not fully recovered from COVID,” he said. “The supply chain issues have narrowed, but they are still a constraint.”

PHOTO | PRATT & WHITNEY
Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan engines power 11 Airbus A220 aircraft for Air Niugini.

Connecticut is already the top supplier state to Airbus in the U.S. The company spent $5 billion with Connecticut-based manufacturers in 2023, with procurement of Pratt & Whitney engines making up the biggest slice of that pie.

There are Connecticut-made parts on every commercial plane Airbus makes, but its helicopter, and space and defense divisions are both looking to expand their supplier network in the state.

Hayes joined Airbus in April of this year, from his former position as CEO of JetBlue Airways. He’s a Connecticut resident, having lived in Darien for some 20 years, something that gives him a familiarity with the aerospace landscape in the state.

“A lot of these manufacturing businesses, they’re very capital intensive,” he said. “And so, people need to have a high level of comfort that if they make those investments that the business will follow.”

His team outlined the technological changes that are coming in the industry, particularly around sustainability, to make sure suppliers are in step with future challenges.

“The next generation of aircraft is going to require a new set of technologies that have to be industrialized,” Hayes said. “Over the next 20 to 30 years, you’re going to see a lot of developments in different fuel types. Airbus is spending a lot of time looking at hydrogen as a potential fuel source of the future.”

‘Business development opportunity’

Connecticut’s Chief Manufacturing Officer Paul Lavoie said the Hartford event was a “tremendous opportunity.” He stressed that the attending companies were vetted to make sure they have the capability to meet Airbus’ future needs.

“When Airbus approached us and said ‘we want to come to Connecticut and tap into your ecosystem’ it was exactly what we were looking for,” Lavoie said. “It’s a business development opportunity.”

“We’re one of the hubs for the world in terms of a manufacturing base whose focus is engines and aircraft,” said U.S. Rep. John Larson, who attended the Airbus meeting. He also noted Airbus’ focus on sustainable fuels as an opportunity for Connecticut.

“They also are world leaders in hydrogen fuel cells and plan to bring the first commercial venture to the forefront in 2035. That’s an ambitious goal,” Larson said.

Santo Pirrotta

Santo Pirrotta, business development manager of Newington-based Lynn Welding, said he was impressed with what he heard at the conference.

“They talked about safety, they talked about quality, they talked about consistency,” he said. “And they never once mentioned lowest price, which always seems to be a big thing in this industry.”

Lynn Welding, a 95-person shop, has relationships with Bell, Honeywell and Boeing, and Pirrotta is very familiar with next steps as the company cultivates a relationship with Airbus.

“We would need to go through their certification process and all the paperwork that goes with it because everything has traceability in our industry,” he said. “It’s a long process. It’s not going to happen next week.”

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