European aerospace group Airbus to set up its third largest industrial complex in Madrid

Madrid has just become one of the three most important regions in Europe dedicated to the manufacture and integration of aerospace platforms.

The King of Spain, Felipe VI, presided over the inauguration of the new industrial campus that Airbus has built in Getafe, a town of around 200,000 inhabitants, which now becomes the third largest aerospace complex in Europe, after the existing ones in the French city of Toulouse and the German city of Hamburg.

The new facilities cover an area of 51,200 square metres, including 17,700 square metres of buildings that will house 1,700 employees by 2023. The new structures bring the existing facilities in Getafe to nearly 840,000 square metres, making Getafe, located just 12 kilometres south of Madrid, the largest Airbus production centre in Spain and the third largest in Europe. 

The public presentation of the new Spanish cutting-edge technological space took place on 15 April and was attended by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, the Minister of Science and Innovation, Pedro Duque, and the Chief of Staff of the Spanish Air Force, General Javier Salto. As well as the mayoress of Getafe, Sara Hernández, and the president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi.

On the part of Airbus, the group's top leaders on a global and national scale were present, headed by the company's CEO, the Frenchman Guillaume Faury, and the President of Airbus Spain, the Spaniard Alberto Gutiérrez.

Guillaume Faury emphasised the will of the company he heads to contribute to Europe's economic recovery and stressed that Spain knows that it can continue to count on Airbus as an "essential ally" for sustainable development. 

For the president of Airbus Spain, the expansion of the Getafe facilities represents "a symbol of resilience" that positions Spain "at the forefront of aerospace worldwide". Alberto Gutiérrez highlighted the aeronautical and space legacy inherited from Construcciones Aeronáuticas (CASA) -integrated into Airbus in 2000-, which has allowed Spain to remain "one of the few countries in the world with the capacity to design, manufacture, assemble and offer the complete in-service support cycle for an aircraft".

The new industrial campus is called Futura and the plans for its construction are the result of the decision to establish the hub of Airbus Spain's activities in Getafe. The expansion is part of the Airbus Master Plan, which encompasses both the construction of the new industrial campus as well as the modernisation and optimisation of the production lines already in operation, which are being equipped with a high degree of digitalisation in line with the Industry 4.0 concept.

The aeronautical responsibilities of the Getafe industrial complex are wide-ranging and varied. It houses the conversion centre that makes the A330 MRTT multipurpose military aircraft, whose main mission is in-flight refuelling and cargo and personnel transport, a reality. The refuelling systems and military avionics are adapted for the A330 commercial aircraft, which are converted into the MRTT version, an acronym for Multi Role Tanker Transport, of which more than 60 aircraft have been sold and are already in service in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Korea, the United Arab Emirates, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Singapore. 

It also houses the final assembly line for the Eurofighter for the Spanish Air Force, R&D&I projects and the design, engineering and manufacture of different structures for all the aircraft in the Airbus range. For example, the horizontal stabilisers for the A350 XWB, A330 and the A320 single-aisle family. In total, the Airbus workforce in Getafe amounts to some 5,000 professionals.

Airbus is the leading company in the Spanish aerospace sector. It provides highly skilled jobs for 12,600 employees at its current three factories in Madrid (Barajas, Tres Cantos and Getafe), Illescas (Toledo), Puerto Real and El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), Albacete and in Seville (San Pablo and Tablada).

Its various sites design, manufacture and assemble structures and electronic equipment for commercial and military aircraft, helicopters, satellites and space launchers, as well as operations and maintenance services.

The most recent contract, which coincided with the inauguration of the Getafe campus, was the signing of an agreement with the Egyptian Air Force for the integral support of its 24 C295 transport aircraft manufactured in Spain. Egypt operates the largest fleet of this aircraft model and wants to ensure its operability for the next five years.

In the vicinity of the new campus, the start-up of the new Airbus Space Systems España factory is also being finalised. It will house all the production capacities that are now being developed at the Barajas factory, which include the development and manufacture of satellites, state-of-the-art flat and parabolic antennas, as well as carbon fibre structures for the Ariane 6 launcher - the successor to the current Ariane 5 - and other European, North American and Japanese rockets.

The newly designed plant has been built on a 32,000 square metre site with two related buildings to house production activities, clean areas for satellite integration and an administrative area, all surrounded by an 11,500 square metre built-up area.

Both the new campus and the new factory dedicated to spatial projects have been realised on the basis of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodology. This process centralises all the information in an intelligent digital model that visualises changes in real time as the project progresses.