UAE's aerospace make jets cheaper to fly

Ross Bradley welcomes a delegation of aerospace suppliers from the blistering heat of the Arabian desert and cools them down with some refreshingly candid advice. "You are too expensive. Please take this message back. We will not put up with prices we are paying today. Unaffordable." The welcome speech may not always be soothing to the ear but industry visitors keep flocking to Al Ain to see one of the world's newest and best-equipped aerospace factories. They are drawn by the dramatic rise of an ambitious and increasingly powerful player in the fast-growing aerospace industry, which is investing to make jets cheaper to fly. Flanked by dunes on an ancient Frankincense route from Yemen to Mesopotamia, the factory is designed to help make lightweight carbon jets that will open up the trade lanes of the future. It sprang from the desert in record time to spearhead Abu Dhabi's ambitions to diversify its oil-dependent economy and produce high-tech jobs for the company's mainly female local workforce. "We put the first spade into the sand in September 2009 and when we started you couldn't get here in a vehicle; you had to drive by 4x4 and then walk," says Bradley, chief executive of Strata, the aerostructures business funded by Abu Dhabi. The project is part of efforts by Abu Dhabi to boost the non-oil economy to 56 per cent of GDP by 2020 and 64 per cent in 2030, up from 41 per cent in 2005-07. It is trying to do what many have long considered impossible — to challenge the biggest parts industry players from Asia to the United States in a short time and at even lower cost, while developing a previously unproven workforce. The steady pilgrimage of industry visitors and a rapid build-up in contracts from the world's largest planemakers suggest the $250 million (Dh918.07 million) factory project is starting to pay off. Eighteen months after the first parts were produced, the Strata factory has a backlog of $3 billion (Dh 11.02 billion) in orders. In an open-plan "clean room," young white-coated women in headscarves work at large tables laying out carbon material. The resinous black material will be moulded into aircraft parts and baked in a high-pressure autoclave oven. The resulting structure is lighter and stronger than traditional aluminium, allowing airlines to save weight and burn less fuel. Each piece is tested with giant ultrasound scanners for invisible flaws. The result of their work is a row of gleaming white "flap track fairings" — canoe-shaped pods that stick out from under a jetliner's wings to house the mechanism for deploying the flaps. They will end up on Airbus A330s and soon on A380s. Last month Strata signed a $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) deal to make composites for Boeing, with an aim to be sole supplier of vertical tailfins for the 787 Dreamliner by the end of the decade. Strata and others are now chasing a possible future contract for flaps on the Airbus A320 that could net another $1 billion. Carbon is the black gold for aerospace. Its potential for creating jobs and technology has been grabbed by many, but few with more impatience and upfront investment than the UAE, whose airlines have already redrawn the map for air