Aerolia’s Canada subsidiary laid the cornerstone of the new Aerolia site in Mirabel, Quebec

Mirabel, Quebec, 11-10-2013 — /EuropaWire/ — Another milestone in the development of Aerolia and its subsidiary Aerolia Canada was achieved on September 27, 2013 in Quebec on the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone of the new Aerolia site in Mirabel.

This ceremony took place in Mirabel in the presence of Ms Pauline Marois, Quebec Prime Minister, of Denis Lebel, Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec and of Pierre Moscovici, French Finance Minister, at the invitation of Christian Cornille, CEO of the Aerolia Group and of Marie-Agnes Veve, CEO of Aerolia Canada.

Joint expertise on a single site

Covering an area of 7,300 m², this site is located against the Montreal-Mirabel Airport and will be the home for assembling the centre fuselage, designed by the Aerolia Canada team in their design offices in Toulouse and Montreal, of the Bombardier* Global 7000* and Global 8000* business jets.

“This new site was designed to group in a same place the skills of our Design Office engineers located in Canada, and of our technicians and production team members. Since our foundation, our Engineering teams in Quebec are actually distributed between Saint- Laurent and Dorval. Grouping them will enable us to be more efficient in our customer service to Bombardier”, says Marie-Agnès Veve, CEO of Aerolia Canada.

The site is composed of three work areas dedicated to Engineering and to Services and of three halls in the North aisle reserved for preparation, assembly and outfitting of electrical systems and piping as well as for testing of equipped fuselages before delivering them to Bombardier.

A two-steps process

As part of the commitments made to Bombardier in 2011, the work performed in Mirabel will ramp up for the programme while the first aircraft subassemblies are manufactured on Aerolia St Nazaire and M’Ghira sites, in France and Tunisia.

“These subassemblies and the assembly of the first aircraft fuselages will benefit from the 95 years of experience of our company. The first fuselages will be directly delivered from our site in Méaulte (North of France) which produces each year about 630 aircraft nose sections and fuselages”, said Christian Cornille, CEO of the Aerolia Group.

Meeting commitments

The Aerolia programme in Mirabel is based on the continuous concern of Aerolia to be able to satisfy the expectations of Bombardier on its new business aircraft programme. “We are proud to develop this programme with Aerolia. The first years of our collaboration show the experience and the determination of their teams to achieve all of our objectives”, says Mr. Bassam Sabbagh, Vice-President and General Manager of the Global 7000 and Global 8000 programme, Bombardier Aerospace.

This Aerolia investment complies with the commitments made to the Quebec and Canadian Governments within the framework of public grant awards for the programme. “In accordance with the agreements signed in June 2012, 82 million dollars will be invested until 2018 and 140 direct jobs will be created. With this first phase of construction, 50% of the investments and recruitments are already on track. Our recruitment campaigns continue”, says M. Cornille.

Fresh boost on Mirabel

Finally, following an entrepreneurial approach, the Management of Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) set up a real dynamics for its new business model strategy. “Aerolia is proud to be the first customer of this new strategy. We wish to ADM large developments at our side and at the side of our industrial partners. The Mirabel site is indeed for us an open window on the North American markets”, concluded Christian Cornille.

*Trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries.
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Aerolia is taking an active part in the success of its customers Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, OGMA and Aerovodochody and in the development of their new programmes: A350 XWB, A400M, Global 7000, Global 8000 and Embraer KC390 As an Aerostructure, System and Equipment manufacturer, Aerolia is a world major player in the design and production of aircraft equipped fuselages. With facilities in Quebec (in Dorval, Saint- Laurent and soon Mirabel), France (Méaulte, St-Nazaire and Toulouse), Germany, China, South Korea, United Arab Emirates and Tunisia, Aerolia has increased its turnover by 51% over 4 years and has very encouraging perspectives for the future in terms of development. At a global level, 3,200 employees are involved in its development with a 2012 turnover of 1 billion 400 million dollars.

Aerolia contact
Philippe Le Grégam
Head of Communications
Aerolia sas
Cell phone: + 33 (0) 6 80 41 81 49
E-mail: philippe.le-gregam@aerolia.com