Darchem gets off to a flier
A BOOMING order book for European planemaking company Airbus is also boosting business in the Tees Valley.
The firm makes its aircraft wings in the UK and works with companies in the Tees Valley including Stillington-based Darchem Engineering.
Airbus announced today it took more than £30bn worth of orders in the first six months of this year.
The 525 orders included 82 for the company’s extra-wide-bodied aircraft the A350, with total orders for this plane now reaching 374 from 23 customers.
The announcement on orders from the Toulouse-based company came in the form of a press release, with today’s Airbus scheduled media conference at the Farnborough Air Show being unexpectedly cancelled.
The 2008 orders also included 335 A320s, 105 A330s, and three of the A380 superjumbos - the world’s largest passenger plane.
Total orders for the A380, which British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have ordered, now stand at 192 from 16 customers.
Orders for all Airbus aircraft have now reached almost 3,700, translating into an equivalent of around six years’ production.
More than two in five of the total orders for the period January-June 2008 came from the Asia-Pacific region, with leasing companies placing 19%.
Darchem Engineering specialises in engine insulation systems and high temperature lightweight fabrication.
It employs 630 workers at Stillington and 100 at its other site in Gloucester and supplies a raft of blue chip companies including Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Pratt and Whitney, Volvo and the Ministry of Defence.
John Padbury, sales and marketing director, said: “It’s great news for our business as 65% or our business is in the aerospace market.”
In May Darchem took the top title at the North East Business Awards 2007, which are organised by the Evening Gazette and its sister paper The Journal.
The company is investing £2.5m at its Stillington headquarters. The expansion will take the workforce to almost 750.
Darchem’s work with Airbus includes providing insulation and exhaust systems for the wings of the new double-decker superjumbo.
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