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SINGAPORE – A $ 38 million campus that brings together all the operations of aircraft manufacturer Airbus in Singapore was officially opened at Seletar on Friday (November 20). Due to Covid-19, the event took place almost nine months after its initial scheduling.
The consolidation comes amid the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the global aviation and aerospace industry. Ancillary services, such as aircraft maintenance and production, have suffered a 40% impact compared to last year, while the number of passengers has plummeted by 66%.
This makes the 51,000-square-meter facility, which occupies an area of just over seven football fields, a “statement of confidence” in Singapore, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said at its opening. .
“Before Covid-19, most of us would have viewed this event as just another occasion when someone from the aviation industry makes an investment in Singapore. What is significant today is that this is a time when that very few people in the world are actually thinking about growing the aviation industry, “he said.
The new campus facilities include a three-story office building that serves as the company’s regional hub for Airbus’ commercial aircraft, defense, space and helicopter businesses in the region, as well as a second warehouse that will increase the capacity of company storage by more than 70 percent.
There will also be a branch of Airbus’ global leadership university, providing training for its employees, the second in Asia after Beijing, and a facility from which a new regional operation for Skywise, the digital services platform of the company.
The European giant employs around 800 people in Singapore and more than 130,000 worldwide, and already has a training center and a spare parts distribution facility at the Seletar site.
Airbus commercial director and International director Christian Scherer, in his opening speech, noted that aviation has continued to support 47 million jobs, or 2.5 percent of all jobs, in the region, and urged Singapore to continue taking the lead. lead the generation of protocols that would allow airplanes to fly through the skies.
He added: “When the flight resumes, we believe that by positioning ourselves here in Singapore, we will be able to re-establish physical contact with our partners and customers and move on to the next phase of recovery.”
Airbus has been in Singapore for some 50 years, beginning in 1969 with the sale of the first four helicopters to the Republic of Singapore Air Force.
Since then, he has worked closely with companies in the aerospace industry on the island, jointly investing with Singapore Airlines to train pilots and working with A * Star on aerospace research.
The Airbus Asia Training Center, a joint venture between Airbus and Singapore Airlines that opened in 2016, is now Airbus’s largest flight crew training facility in its global network, with more than 60 airlines using it.
Chan said opening the campus “in the midst of the crisis” assures him that there is not much that can stop the Singapore-Airbus partnership in the next 50 years.
He spoke of the opportunities emerging in various areas, including sustainability for the aviation industry to achieve carbon-neutral growth and future modes of transportation such as drones that could improve flight safety.
The Covid-19 pandemic led Airbus to cut some 15,000 jobs around the world at the beginning of the year, although it did not disclose the extent to which Singapore employees would be affected. The Straits Times understands that Airbus has no plans to increase the number of employees here in the coming months.
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