As I was scraping the car this morning before my drive to work and the dashboard temperature gauge had plummeted to -10˚c my mind wandered quite naturally to sunnier climes and the possibility of heading off for a winter break to the sun. Whilst it’s possible to use the car or train to more local destinations, they’re not exactly going to deliver the weather I am looking for and to get to those destinations I will need to fly. UK airports welcome in the region of 250 million passengers each year and they rely on the efficient and safe handling of hundreds of aircraft flying to every corner of the world.
Henry Rolls famously met Charles Royce at my favourite hotel in Manchester, the Midland, and began a business partnership that endures to this day employing over 1000 people in the North West designing and manufacturing jet engines.
Along with BAE Systems and Airbus, these three OEMs are at the heart of a cluster of aerospace companies employing over 50,000 people accounting for a third of total UK aerospace activity. In an east west corridor ranging from Barnoldswick to Blackpool there are over 300 businesses in the largest concentration of aerospace companies in the country, between them generating sales of around £7bn. This cluster of activity is supported by the region’s 12 universities who provide thousands of engineering graduates and post graduates each year.
It is supported by the Aerospace Research Institute, Daresbury’s Virtual Engineering Centre and the North West Composites Centre located in Manchester University but a partnership between the universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster and Bolton. The quality of the research, the quality of the workforce and the quality of the design and manufacturing is unrivalled and is one of the reasons that this sector in the region came through the economic difficulties better than most.
Given all this expertise, leading edge research and development, world class supply chains and outstanding manufacturing capability the future of the aerospace industry is in good hands and I’m glad it is. I used to fly a lot more for my job than I do now but I still do fly. I also fly for pleasure (as I hope to do this winter) and I know many of you do too.
It’s a comfort to know that the aircraft you fly in will owe such a lot of its safe performance to the quality of the cluster of firms in the North West from Barnoldswick to Blackpool. You could say it’s a real B2B of the aerospace sector.