South Scotland MSP Brian Whittle has been touring aerospace company Aero Fastener at Prestwick Airport.
Aero Fastener is an international aerospace fastener solutions company, providing production kits to some of the world’s leading aircraft maintenance and aircraft manufacturers, including Airbus and Spirit AeroSystems, who also have a significant presence at the airport.
With every plane in the sky requiring thousands of individual fasteners to hold them together, plane manufacturers and repair companies are faced with having to store large stocks of components. Aero Fastener help them get around this by taking the different fasteners and putting them into fix kits containing only the specific pieces required to fit a single component. They then deliver those kits to the plane builders as needed, improving efficiency and keeping warehousing costs down.
The company’s site at Prestwick is their European Logistics Centre, employing over 20 people to supply a growing list of aerospace companies around the world.
During Brian’s visit, he was given a tour of the company’s site and shown how individual component kits are put together with a diagram of where each specific fastener should be used. Brian also met with company owner and Chief Executive, James Avery who was visiting from their headquarters in the US.
Brian Whittle MSP said:
“It was a pleasure to meet with Jim and the team at Aero Fastener. People don’t always appreciate how many stages there are in building a plane or how many different individual components are required just to hold the thing together. Most people will never have heard of Aero Fastener but there’s a good chance many of us have flown on a plane that they’ve helped put together.
With the coming investment from the Ayrshire Growth Deal and the prospect of a new owner for Prestwick Airport, it’s exciting to see how many world class companies like Aero Fastener are basing themselves here and looking towards how they can grow in the future.”
Comment from James Avery, Chief Executive of Aero Fastener:
“It was refreshing to meet with Brian Whittle, to see his excitement and vision for the airport region and the Ayrshire community. The vision is to build the infra-structure of the airport which would support growth and increase investment by existing companies and offering a robust platform for new companies to invest in the future at Prestwick Airport. This potential growth could add to further economic stability with long-term benefits to local businesses and the people of Ayrshire.”
