Since buying the Tarbes-based Socata business from EADS in 2008, Daher might be best known – in the aerospace world at least – as the brand behind the TBM high-speed single-engined turboprop. But the French firm, whose roots go back to cargo shipping in the nineteenthcentury, is also an increasingly important manufacturer of aerostructures. It is beginning to take that business transatlantic, beyond its traditional domestic customer base, although Europe remains a driver of growth too.
At the EBACE business aviation show in Geneva in May, Paris-headquartered Daher announced its second tier-one contract with Gulfstream. After last year securing the deal for the main landing gear doors on the G500 and G600 – its first in North America – the company will also design and manufacture the wing-to-body fairings for the Savannah-based airframer’s latest under-development large-cabin, long-range business jets.
Daher sees the move as strategically crucial, as it gives it a springboard from which to expand its transatlantic aerostructures activities. When it acquired Socata it bought not only an aircraft brand with four-fifths of its sales in the USA, but the EADS’s subsidiary’s substantial aerostructures division added to Daher’s own aerostructures activities. However, with customers such as Dassault, Thales and Airbus, the combined business was firmly anchored in France.
Daher is “very committed to expand in the US market”, says Didier Kayat, deputy chief executive of the family-owned company, which turned over just under $1.1 billion last year. Although new to the market in terms of third-party aerostructures, Kayat points out the former Socata business has been in North America for 40 years, and has a fleet there of 500 aircraft. “The renewed confidence from Gulfstream is encouraging us to accelerate the growth of our activities in the USA,” he adds.
Daher has invested extensively since the acquisition - one of its first moves, in 2009, was to introduce the updated TBM 900
Daher
Daher’s industrial footprint in the region now comprises an aerostructures factory just over the Mexican border in Nogales, and a sales and servicing facility for TBMs in Pompano Beach, Florida, which opened earlier this year. The latter doubles as the US headquarters for its airplane business unit, managing six other independent distributors for the territory. The latest variant in its TBM series, the Pratt & Whitney PT6A-66D-powered TBM 900, began deliveries last year.
Although Daher does not precisely break down its revenues, aerostructures and TBM make up about two-thirds of its activities, with the remainder from logistics and services for both aerospace and France’s nuclear industry. Daher is “lead logistics provider” for Airbus Helicopters’ four European plants and runs logistics at Turbomeca’s three French factories. Daher’s nuclear portfolio comprises activities including the international transportation of fuel and decommissioning and dismantling of power stations.
On the aerostructures side, Dassault is one of its most important customers. For the recently rolled out 5X programme, Daher makes the upper section of the passenger cabin and the lower front section of the fuselage. A section of the fuselage is on display on Daher’s stand at the Paris air show. It also makes fuselage sections for Dassault’s sister 7X and 8X business jets at its Tarbes site, and manufactures parts for the Rafale fighter.
About half the extensive Tarbes site, near the foothills of the Pyrenees, comprises aerostructures shops, including those for the TBM 900 itself. One building is dedicated to manufacturing the lower nose section for the Airbus A380, and another larger one to the A350, for which Daher makes the composite landing gear doors. The contract was signed in 2008, and a large hall, due to open next year, is being constructed next door to the existing one to handle the ramp-up in production.
Along with the Gulfstream contracts, another important piece of new business for the Tarbes site is the composite fenestron for the Airbus Helicopters H160 medium utility rotorcraft unveiled at Heli-Expo earlier this year. Daher will also design and certificate the concept E-Fan 2.0 electric aircraft on behalf of Airbus. In addition, Tarbes builds belly fairings for the A330, as well as components for the Airbus A400M and ATRs. The company says that 1,400 aircraft last year had at least one Daher part.
Amid its other behind-the-scenes activities, the 25-year-old TBM brand creates a halo effect for Daher. “TBM is an icon and is a positive image for Daher,” says Nicolas Chabbert, senior vice-president of Daher’s airplane business unit. Aircraft manufacturing may seem somewhat out of kilter with its third-party supplier businesses, but “it’s a way of saying to these customers ‘we do understand you’”, he adds.
The Tarbes business, including its aerostructures arm, had been a tiny and somewhat neglected outpost of the giant EADS empire. “We were less than 1% of Airbus. Our turnover of €300 million [$334 million] was about the equivalent of the sticker price of one A380,” says Chabbert, a long-time former Socata executive. “There was no attention to us. However, with a turnover of around € 1 billion, the airplane business is a strategic fit for Daher.”
Daher has invested extensively since the acquisition. One of its first moves, in 2009, was to introduced the TBM 900 – an updated TBM 850, with composite winglets and aerodynamic tweaks – but the development was kept secret until a 2012 announcement, two years before certification. Last year, 51 deliveries meant TBM had its second-best year ever. With annual production of the TBM 900 at around 50, Daher will have delivered over 100 of the new model by the end of 2015.
On 1 January, Daher rebranded its entire group with a new logo and dropped the Socata name for the Tarbes business. At the time, Kayat, who will take over as chief executive from family scion Patrick Daher in 2017, said the thinking was to develop a “strong and legible brand” in common with other major players in the sector. “We believe… that Daher has all the assets to become one of the major aerospace and advanced technology equipment suppliers,” he added.
Source: Flight International
