Rome, 24 July 2024 15:45
Leonardo signed, at the Unindustria headquarters in Rome, a unified agreement with the trade unions to manage the production slowdown of the Boeing 787 programme and relaunch the Grottaglie plant.
The site will remain operational, and the partial reduction of production activities will only affect the Boeing 787 programme. Starting 29 July and until the end of the year, the workers will alternate between a single work shift and partial temporary furlough under the standard wage guarantee fund scheme.
The slowdown in the Boeing 787 production and delivery growth rate calls for this measure to temporarily align production capacity with the programme’s reduced short-term requirements. All other programmes currently active at Grottaglie will continue as planned.
The agreement benefits from a series of initiatives involving the helicopter business, consistently supporting the company’s volume growth in that sector and positively affecting the Grottaglie plant. These initiatives include production and engineering activities to be launched in several phases, from 2025 to 2028. Activities range from structural product assembly (AW101 and AW609 components) to research into hybrid-electric propulsion, from unmanned experimentation to a final assembly line for the AW609 tiltrotor in Italy, as already recently anticipated.
The agreement also strengthens aspects related to training and the research and development of new solutions. The new Aerotech Academy, based in Grottaglie, is an advanced training course for engineering graduates preparing to launch its first edition for the academic year 2024-25.
Grottaglie already hosts the Joint Lab with Syensqo (formerly Solvay) and the Leonardo MaTeRIA Lab (Materials Technology Research and Innovation Lab).
Despite the current situation, the 787 programme remains a leader in the market segment for medium-large passenger aircraft. Orders (from the programme’s inception to March 2024) exceed 1,900 aircraft, with over 1,100 already delivered. Positive prospects for increasing the production rate are anticipated as early as the start of 2025.
The new helicopter activities further consolidate the process of industrial diversification already in progress at the Grottaglie plant, thanks to the industrial activities related to next-generation programmes such as the Eurodrone wing, the fuselage of the Vertical Aerospace VX4 electric aircraft, and the fuselage of Leonardo's prototype remote-piloted Proteus helicopter. Although still in the embryonic stages, these programmes already employ a workforce of about 100 people. Between 2025 and 2028, Leonardo's helicopter division's new industrial activities are estimated to generate up to 250 new direct and indirect jobs in Grottaglie.