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Aircraft HQ celebrates year in Prestwick
11/08/2003
BAE SYSTEMS Regional Aircraft in Ayrshire celebrated the
first birthday of its newly restructured business today by
announcing the creation of over 200 quality jobs in the past
year.
Following an exhaustive review of options as to where to
site its headquarters and core support and engineering
functions, Regional Aircraft chose Scotland and around 450
people are now employed at its Prestwick operations. With a
strong focus on serving its customers, Regional Aircraft is
developing new business opportunities for third parties in
spare logistics services, design engineering services, training
and asset management portfolio servicing and brokerage
activities.
Over the past year Regional Aircraft's new HQ has been
refurbished and occupied with many of the functions previously
carried out in Manchester and France being transferred to
Prestwick. In addition to the transfer of some staff from these
locations, the majority of new employees have been recruited
locally with further recruitment being undertaken.
Jim Wallace, Deputy First Minister for Scotland and Minister
for Enterprise, welcomed BAE Systems' decision to site its new
Regional Aircraft Support Centre at Prestwick.
He said: "I am delighted to welcome BAE SYSTEMS' decision to
site its new Regional Aircraft Centre at Prestwick. As well as
strengthening Prestwick's position as a major aerospace hub,
the creation of a significant number of high quality new jobs
and the safeguarding of the existing workforce is great news
for both Ayrshire and Scotland. The fact that the company has
selected Prestwick is a resounding endorsement of the
management and highly skilled workforce at this facility.
"The Executive is committed to doing all we can to create
the conditions for economic growth in Scotland.
"I am pleased that we have been able to support the project
with a £2.4 million offer of Regional Selective Assistance
(RSA) which has played a key role in securing the new Regional
Aircraft Support Centre at Prestwick.
"I congratulate everyone involved in bringing this project
to Scotland and I wish all at BAE SYSTEMS Regional Aircraft in
Prestwick every success for the future."
Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire chief executive Evelyn McCann
said: "This is excellent news for BAE SYSTEMS and excellent
news for Ayrshire.
"BAE SYSTEMS has been one of the longest-serving businesses
at Prestwick, and we are delighted that this important
investment has safeguarded and created so many high value jobs
in Ayrshire.
"The decision by BAE SYSTEMS to locate all of its regional
aircraft design and build functions at Prestwick is a testament
to the reputation of the Ayrshire workforce and Scotland's
growing reputation in the aerospace sector.
"This again confirms the confidence which is flowing through
the aerospace industry in Scotland, coming as it does so soon
after the launch of the Scottish aerospace strategy, which has
been designed to attract more aerospace investment and jobs to
Scotland."
Alan Fraser, Managing Director of Regional Aircraft, said:
"It has been a very challenging year for us as we have
consolidated our Regional Aircraft service and support business
at Prestwick involving the transfer of staff and business
operations from Woodford and Toulouse. To date we have invested
several million pounds in our Prestwick operations and an
additional factor in our decision to locate our headquarters in
Scotland was the Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) offered by
the Scottish Executive.
"We are also extremely grateful for the support we have
received from Scottish Enterprise and delighted with the
response locally to our recruitment campaign. Of the 200 jobs
created the vast majority are professional staff with well over
100 engineers, nearly 70 are customer support and logistics
specialists and a further 20 are IT and e-business
personnel."
Regional Aircraft is responsible for Customer Support,
Engineering and Asset Management activities covering a
world-wide base of 160 customers operating over 1,100 aircraft
in addition to managing a trading and leasing portfolio of some
350 aircraft. Apart from its Prestwick headquarters it has
offices at Hatfield, Herts (Asset Management) and Weybridge,
Surrey (Spares Logistics), as well as overseas locations in
Washington DC and Australia.
In October 2001, "Scotland: A Global Connections Strategy"
was launched as part of the Scottish Executive's guiding
principles for the Enterprise Networks, "A Smart Successful
Scotland." It set out a radical new approach to establish
Scotland as a world class business partner in the globally
connected economy of the 21st Century, including the creation
of a new body, Scottish Development International, which is
jointly operated by the Scottish Executive and Scottish
Enterprise.