President Angelo Vallerani: “The 2026 Olympics are a unique opportunity to create new generation mobility and safety systems that leverage our skills and create development in the area”

Lombardy Aerospace Cluster, exports hold: +0.4% in 2020

During the annual meeting of Lombardy companies in the sector, an agreement was presented with the Italian Association of Non-Destructive Testing to facilitate the participation of SMEs in international programs involving the main global prime contractors

The exports of the Lombardy aerospace industry are holding up, making an exception both with respect to the trend of international trade in the sector at a national level, and a general decline in foreign sales recorded in Italian and Lombardy manufacturing. Indeed, despite a year characterized by the heavy economic repercussions of the pandemic, Lombard exports of aircraft, space vehicles and related devices in 2020 increased by +0.4% reaching 1.018 billion, thanks to a clear trend reversal achieved in the last quarter. A figure that takes on a certain importance if we consider that all the rest of Lombardy’s exports recorded a decline of -10.6% in the same period and Italian exports of -9.7%. But Lombardy’s aerospace manages to be an exception not only compared to the general economic context, but also to that of its own sector. Made in Italy aerospace, in fact, closed 2020 with -20.3%.

These are the data that formed the backdrop to the annual meeting of the companies that join the Lombardy Aerospace Cluster. “The export data – comments the President, Angelo Vallerani – is positive because it demonstrates our fundamentals, the ability to remain on the business market and the anti-cyclical characteristic of the sector, especially in our territory. However, at the same time we must remember that 2019 was an annus horribilis for our sales abroad. We can be satisfied with the performance, therefore, only because it was recorded in a 2020 characterized by an unprecedented situation such as that of the pandemic”.

This is also why the Lombardy Aerospace Cluster’s gaze is aimed at planning in the coming years for the positioning of companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, on the main development drivers for the sector. First and foremost that represented by participation in international aerospace and defense programs. In this sense, the Assembly was the opportunity to present the signing of a framework agreement that the Lombardy Aerospace Cluster has signed with the Italian Association of Non-Destructive Testing (AIPND) which will act as a facilitator for companies’ access to the services of the ‘NADCAP – National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program. That is, the international cooperation program that defines the accreditation requirements to be suppliers of the main prime contractors at a global level and therefore participate in the most important international industrial programs in the sector. It includes companies of the caliber of Boeing, Leonardo, Bombardier, Comac, GE Aviation, Rolls-Royce, Safran. “The certifications necessary for the inclusion of SMEs in the main value chains – explains the President of the Lombardy Aerospace Cluster, Angelo Vallerani – is a front that has seen us as protagonists for some time. In the wake of this fundamental activity to allow Lombardy companies of all sizes to stand alone on international markets, we have decided to set up this framework agreement with the Italian Association of Non-Destructive Testing which will allow us to facilitate relationships between the companies of our Cluster and the NADCAP Program which dictates product and process standards. A very pragmatic action, a concrete service that will allow companies to have quicker responses from the NADCAP managers and carry out often time consuming activities more easily ”.

The eyes of aerospace companies are also focused on the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics: “This is – explains Vallerani – an important opportunity to innovate the territory, create new generation mobility and safety systems. Our companies with their technologies and skills, together with those of the other regional technological clusters of mobility, smart cities and energy, can be protagonists of a paradigm shift played on three levels: earth, air and space. I am thinking concretely of satellite monitoring and that carried out through drones. Or the creation of a system of heliports and vertiports for integrated mobility. It all passes through our sector. We hope for ambitious projects that can seize, as often happens, the opportunity of a major event to bring long-term benefits to the entire community. It would be a far-sighted way of setting up an industrial policy capable of creating development by leveraging the know-how present in the area”.

In this sense, a collaboration process has already been started in January by the Lombardy Aerospace Cluster together with the Lombardy Region. ( Click here to learn more ).

Varese, 29 April 2021

AEROSPACE EXPORT DATA

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