French aerostructures firm Daher is poised to secure a significant new contract with a business aircraft manufacturer as part of a push to expand its US customer base.
The agreement – to be announced at the EBACE business aviation show in Geneva, which begins on 19 May – follows its deal with Gulfstream last October to design and produce the main landing gear doors for the new G500 and G600.
That was the Paris-based company’s first tier-one win in the US market. Daher already makes a range of structures – including landing gear doors – mostly for French customers including Airbus and Dassault.
“Gulfstream was new business for us, but we don’t want to stop there,” says Daher senior vice president Nicolas Chabbert.
Daher’s acquisition of the former Tarbes-based Socata business from EADS in 2008 not only turned it into an airframer in its own right for the first time, but also gave it a substantial transatlantic footprint: four in five TBM single-engine turboprops are operated in the USA.
As well as a new sales and support base in Florida for the TBM business, Daher has a plant just over the border in Nogales, Mexico, to manufacture composite parts for North American customers.
Source: Flight International
