Airbus warns it may well move unit out of UK on no-deal Brexit
‘Please don’t listen to the Brexiteers’ madness, which asserts that, because we have huge plants here, we will not move … they are wrong,’ CEO Tom Enders warns
Paris — Airbus warned on Thursday it could shift future wing-building out of Britain in the absence of a smooth exit from the EU, predicting “potentially very harmful decisions” for its British operations in the event of a 'no-deal' Brexit. In a direct appeal to Britain's divided parliament to avoid such an outcome, CEO Tom Enders acknowledged there would be no immediate change in its industrial presence, but issued his sharpest warning yet that future jobs are at risk. “The UK's aerospace sector now stands at the precipice,” Enders said in a video released on Airbus's website. “If there is a no-deal Brexit, we at Airbus will have to make potentially very harmful decisions for the UK.” The world's second-largest aerospace group employs 14,000 people in Britain, including 6,000 at its main wings factory at Broughton, Wales, and 3,000 in Filton, western England, where wings are designed and supported. Critics of previous warnings by Airbus have cast doubt on whether the France-based g...
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