Airbus expects its recently opened engineering centre in Moscow to be employing 50 people by year-end. The office, a joint venture with Russia's Kaskol group, opened in late March and employs 25 people.
The first group of Russian engineers underwent training last year at Airbus's Hamburg and Toulouse sites. Vladimir Raschupkin, who previously headed General Electric and Pratt & Whitney Canada activities in Russia, has been appointed general director of the centre, while the post of general designer is vacant. The centre has been tasked with working on fuselage structure, system installation and stress analysis. Fuselage design will remain the office's "centre of activities" in the future, says Airbus executive vice-president engineering Alain Garcia.
Parts designed in Moscow will be produced in Russia. The Sokol plant in Nizhny-Novgorod, in which Kaskol is a shareholder, has produced a trial batch of Airbus parts, while NPK is negotiating production of parts for Airbus airliners worth $30 million-50 million annually. Irkut says the production site is yet to be chosen.
Meanwhile, the workforce of Airbus North America's design centre in Wichita, Kansas, which opened last year, has risen to 140.
Source: Flight International
