Strata, Mubadala Investment Company’s aerospace manufacturing unit, said it delivered 100 shipsets of the assembled A350-900 widebody aircraft's inboard flaps to European plane maker Airbus.
The company has now moved on from assembling to fabricating inboard flap components and has invested in a full automated manufacturing process for the parts, Strata said in a statement on Monday.
"This is a testament of our capabilities and focus to elevate our status as a sole supplier alongside with Airbus of the wing part," Ismail Ali Abdulla, chief executive of Strata, said.
Strata currently manufactures parts on widebodies, business jets and turboprops. It counts among its customers international aerospace giants Boeing, Airbus, Italy's Leonardo and Switzerland's Pilatus Aircraft for billions of dollars worth of contracts. The company is the Gulf’s biggest producer of aircraft parts and a key anchor of the UAE's economic diversification efforts.
Strata, which began operations in 2010, makes composite parts for wings and tail fins on jets including Airbus A380s and A330s, as well as Boeing's wide-body 777, 777X and 787 Dreamliners.
Airbus selected Strata as supplier of the inboard flaps for the A350-900 during the 50th edition of the Farnborough Airshow in the UK in 2016.
Designed to increase the total lift capability of the wing of an aircraft, an inboard flap is mounted on the trailing edge of the wing to increase the wing’s surface during take-off and landing and improve stability during flight.
In May, Mubadala announced a partnership with industrial company Honeywell to produce N95 face masks at Strata's Al Ain facility to boost the county's fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The production line was set to manufacture about 90,000 masks a day and have an annual output capacity of more than 30 million masks. The the new manufacturing line will help the UAE meet its own national requirements for masks that filter out airborne particles, but also make it an exporter, Mubadala said.
In addition to its composite parts manufacturing on widebody jets, Strata is also looking at opportunities to produce Boeing and Airbus narrowbody plane parts for the first time as it seeks to diversify its portfolio, Mr Abdulla told The National in November at the Dubai Airshow.
Diversifying in the global aerospace supply chain, Strata is also eyeing engine components manufacturing.
