A tier one partner in the aerostructure, pilot seats and First and Business class passenger seats, STELIA Aerospace announces the opening of a new assembly site in Portugal, in order to meet its growth challenges and comfort its position among the aeronautical leaders.

STELIA Aerospace continues its transformation in order to address its customer’s industrial and economic challenges and the opening of this new site in Santo Tirso, north-east of Porto, will complete and reinforce its industrial setup (5 sites and 2 subsidiaries in France, 2 subsidiaries in Morocco, 1 in Tunisia and 2 in North America).

AICEP has been supporting this new investment project of STELIA Aerospace which will be more than 40 million euros and foresees to create 240 jobs, 30 of which are highly qualified.

This new site will host assembly aerostructure sub-assembly activities, for sections which will then be shipped to the STELIA Aerospace French sites of Méaulte and Rochefort for integration. Activity will start at the end of this year and will progressively ramp-up to reach cruising rate by 2023.

Portugal was chosen for several reasons, including its relevant aeronautical expertise, its strong labor pool, its Euro area membership and its geographic proximity with STELIA Aerospace’s French sites, enabling logistic optimisation.

Cédric GAUTIER, CEO of STELIA Aerospace, said « The creation of this new entity is fully part of the industrial optimisation strategy that we implemented at the creation of STELIA Aerospace in 2015, in view of boosting the performance and global competitiveness of the company. It will allow us to absorb potential increases in our customer’s activity, in order to better address tomorrow’s challenges, in an ever more competitive world”.

António COSTA, Prime Minister of Portugal, underlines: “STELIA Aerospace`s investment decision in our country is a clear confirmation of the high competitiveness that the national aeronautical cluster has already achieved. This investment in a high potential sector will certainly contribute to the deepening of industrial partnerships, but will also induce research and development cooperation, which are essential to meet the new challenges facing the future of the aeronautical sector. This decision is the recognition of the quality of Portuguese talent as the main factor of investment attraction in Portugal and that we should continue to invest in the qualification of our workforce. Portugal welcomes STELIA Aerospace and the Airbus group.”