French aircraft manufacturer Airbus has said that it is in very early stages of discussing the potential of buying parts of aircraft parts supplier Spirit AeroSystems as rival Boeing is reportedly looking into buying back the business.
The supplier, which is currently implicated in the concerns about quality control at Boeing after it supplied the door plug involved in the blow out incident on a 737 MAX aircraft in January, was spun off from Boeing in 2005 but now serves as a supplier for a number of aerospace companies.
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Speaking to CNBC, Airbus’ CFO Thomas Toepfer said that it was very important for the manufacturer to have a stable relationship with the company, adding: “In light of the situation today where Boeing has potentially the interest to take over Spirit, we could also imagine that some of the work packages could find their way to Airbus and we take them over.”
Spirit’s European businesses are some of the biggest airframe suppliers for Airbus while its business in Northern Ireland manufactures the wings for the Airbus A220, making it unlikely for Boeing to take on these parts of the company.
Toepfer said that Airbus had already worked with the company to ensure stable operations but clarified that any discussions about taking over “work packages” were only in the “very, very early stages”.
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The CFO’s comments came as he discussed Airbus’ disappointment with Boeing over the concerns about its safety culture and quality control, saying that it was not helpful for the industry but had made the European manufacturer “put even more scrutiny” on its own production process.
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