Stelia Aerospace, owned by European planemaker Airbus, will open a 40 million euro assembly plant near Porto in Portugal.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

About STELIA Aerospace 

With a turnover of 2,2 billion euros and 7,000 employees worldwide (4,500 in France and 2,500 in North America, Tunisia and Morocco), STELIA Aerospace is one of the world leaders in the field of aerostructures, pilot seats and Business Class and First Class passenger seats.
STELIA Aerospace designs and manufactures the front fuselage sections for the entire Airbus family, as well as fuselage sections and specific sub-assemblies for Airbus, fully equipped wings for ATR, fully equipped central fuselages for Bombardier’s Global 7500 aircraft, and complex metallic and composite aerostructure parts for Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, Northrop-Grumman.