Leonardo, what happens to the aerostructures division of the former Finmeccanica

21 March 20213 years ago babelfish

All the news on Leonardo's Aerostructures division, 1000 redundancies expected due to more contained orders from Boeing and Atr. Here are numbers, comments and scenarios

Leonardo is optimistic about the guidance for this year, despite the difficulties of the Aerostructures division.

The aerospace and defense giant expects this year "a resumption of growth" and an improvement in the accounts, despite the problems of the Aerostructures division.

The Aerostructures division, which produces components for airliners, will continue to have smaller orders from Boeing and the ATR consortium. This means that the losses will be greater this year than in 2020.

For the Fim, "2021 will be characterized as the worst year for production volumes with a production forecast of 4.7 B787 / month compared to the previous 14 and about 22 ATRs compared to 75 in 2019".

"The new forecasts of market recovery, linked to the persistence of the pandemic situation, see 2026 as the year in which it is expected to return to the volumes of 2019", says the federation of metalworkers of the CISL.

So much so that the group led by Alessandro Profumo communicated 1,000 structural redundancies for the Aerostructures division to the metalworking unions on 10 March.

All the details.

BREAK-EVEN NOT REACHABLE IN 2021

Leonardo's CEO Lucio Valerio Cioffi announced that the break-even target for the Aerostructures division is not achievable this year. In the coming months, the company will present a detailed restructuring plan. "There is a comparison with Boeing on the costs of the 787 program. It is one thing to produce 14 fuselages per month as in 2019, another thing is to produce 5 as this year", Cioffi said , noting that "Airbus' programs are they are recovering better ”.

The former Finmeccanica therefore asked Boeing for a price change to cover the costs of lower production. “For the 787 fuselages we are the only supplier. Without us, the 787 does not exist ”, explained the CEO Profumo.

1000 EXUBERS FOR LEONARDO AEROSTRUCTURE DIVISION

Leonardo therefore announced 1,000 redundancies for the Aerostructures division. Of these, "500 to be managed with early retirement for workers who will qualify for access to article 4" Fornero law "in the years 2021-2022-2023". The other 500, on the other hand, "will be relocations to plants of other Divisions".

THE INTERESTED SITES

For the Fim, “all this must take place to protect an important and strategic sector for the Pass to guarantee employment in the territories of Grottaglie, Foggia, Nola and Pomigliano”. In fact, these (2 in Puglia and the same number in Campania) are the factories that make up Leonardo's Aerostructures division.

CONCERN ABOUT THE LEONARDO PLANT IN GROTTAGLIE

Even before the announcement of the redundancies, the Rsu Uilm expressed concern for the future of the Leonardo plant in Grottaglie (Taranto). 1300 employees (direct) work here who are involved in the construction of two sections (central and central rear) of the carbon fiber fuselage of the Boeing 787. It should not be forgotten that Boeing is the only customer of the Apulian plant. The RSU complain about the "completely anomalous condition due to the plant shutdown which has decreed about one hundred and seventy days of collective shutdowns".

"Despite the agreement of 17 December – they add – has sanctioned the forecast of workloads to be placed side by side with the B787 on the Grottaglie site ( EuroMale drone project and research project called Astro), and despite the start of works in construction site for the construction of the Drone in January 2021, to date there is no concrete news ".

What "emerges and worries us – insist the RSU – is the clear feeling that the industrial strategy of Leonardo Spa's Corporate continues in fact to absolutely not see Aerostructures as an integral part of its core business".

TOWARDS DIVERSIFICATION WITH THE EUROMAL

In Grottaglie the company intends to proceed with diversification, in the military sector, with the production of the Euromale wing. This was reiterated by Maurizio Rosini, Leonardo's Aerostructures Operations Director, during a debate promoted by Fiom.

“The design and industrialization will start in 2021, in 2024-25 we will start to go into production with the wing and test prototypes, then mass production” explained Rosini. In this way, Leonardo moves towards overcoming the single-client with a program very different from Boeing's fuselage sections.

GIORGETTI'S QUESTION FOR LEONARDO AEROSTRUTTURE

But the situation of Leonardo's Taranto plant also lands on the table of the Draghi government.

On 11 March the deputy Gianpaolo Cassese (M5S) deposited a question addressed to the ministers of economic development, Giancarlo Giorgetti, and of labor and social policies, Andrea Orlando, regarding the initiatives aimed at industrial sustainability of the entire aerostructures division of Leonardo and, in particular, of the Grottaglie site.

NO PRE-RETIREMENT IN GROTTAGLIE

In the Leonardo aeronautical plant in Grottaglie (Taranto), however, there will be no early retirement. This was announced on March 12 by Fiom CGIL in a debate promoted by the same union to comment on what the company announced a few days ago, or 1000 redundancies in the Aerostructures division divided between early retirement and transfers to other divisions of Leonardo. In reference to early retirement, Fiom CGIL said that “the first part does not impact Grottaglie because we have a very young workforce. If it hits it, it will be with numbers that can be counted on the fingers of one hand ”.

Regarding the construction of the two fuselage sections, central and rear central, Fiom stated that “the forecast we are given is to return to 10 fuselages per month from 2023.
The gap that exists with respect to the 14 fuselages would be filled with the new programs announced by Leonardo ”.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/leonardo-divisione-aerostrutture-finmeccanica/ on Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:44:21 +0000.