Airbus, one of Europe’s leading producers of commercial airliners has warned it may have to consider its operations in the post-Brexit UK without any imminent transparency over customs rules.
Katherine Bennett, Senior Vice-President for Airbus UK, is apprehensive that customs and official procedures would hold-up its manufacturing process and that will be a ‘critically bad issue for Airbus’. She said that the firm held discussions with government about the issue.
Airbus has a yearly expense of about US $6.92bn each year on the UK supply chain. So, it very crucial for the company that its ‘parts don’t get held up in warehouses’ and their on-time delivery is unaffected. Ms Bennett said: “It’s critical for our business to ensure that the wings that we build in Broughton and in Filton can get to France and Germany for the final assembly line.”
Bennett said that the company will shortly ‘have to press a button on a decision on stockpiling parts’.
She added: “It would be very expensive for us and a burden we don’t want to be suffering. Our key preference is for the UK to remain a home nation for Airbus. But we really need the conditions for us to be effective. We don’t want extra costs on our UK business which may make Airbus think differently about us.”