• Airbus Helicopters, located in Marignane, directly employs 8,000 people and employs more than 10,000 people in subcontracting companies.

  • With the coronavirus, the helicopter market suddenly collapsed.

  • To bounce back, the world leader in the construction of helicopters inaugurated a new production line and filled its book with public orders.

Nine hundred helicopters produced in 2021, against 2,500 in 2015. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Airbus Helicopters, the largest private employer in Bouches-du-Rhône, was brutal. The world was at a standstill and the helicopter market fell by 50%. But the economy is rebounding and the world leader in the construction of helicopters based in Marignane, about twenty kilometers from Marseille, sees the horizon emerging.

The third largest French industrial site, which employs 8,000 people on site and runs more than 11,000 subcontractor jobs, has just inaugurated a new production line on which 200 workers are working on the manufacture of transmission boxes, "parts. criticism of the helicopters which ensure the transmission between the engines and the rotors ”, explains Bruno Even, the CEO.

The investment of 57 million euros, started in 2017, resulted in a new organization of the chain allowing productivity gains in proportions that the CEO "is not in the habit of commenting", industrial secrecy requires.

Bullets, Caracal and recovery plan

In this "new production logic, the operator only performs value-added actions", details an engineer on site. Thus, trolleys containing the exact quantity of components necessary for a day's work are prepared upstream, the ergonomics of the stations in the chain are also reinforced and the tools are all chipped in order to record their action and ensure that they don't get lost in the production process. Or forgotten, for example, inside a transmission box.

On this line will be manufactured the parts that will go into the construction of the eight Caracal, military transport helicopters, or a dozen other models ordered by the French state as part of the recovery plan.

Contract amount: 600 million euros.

Something to satisfy Renaud Muselier who made the trip for the inauguration of the new channel and who worked on the signing of this public order.

"You are number one in the world, you have to stay," encouraged the president of the region.

These 600 million euros will help greatly while waiting for the market to start again.

"There is a beginning of recovery in light helicopters for transporting passengers", notes Bruno Even who is also awaiting the launch of the military helicopter Guépard whose development began in 2017.

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  • Marignane

  • Helicopter

  • Marseilles

  • Economy

  • Recovery plan

  • Renaud Muselier

  • Military

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