AviationNews – Airbus has committed £150 million to transform its former A380 superjumbo manufacturing hall at Broughton into a dedicated A321 wing production facility. This major overhaul will expand regional aerospace capacity and support hundreds of new skilled manufacturing jobs in North Wales as global demand surges.
The project revives Broughton’s massive West Factory, an 83,500-square-metre facility originally opened in 2003 to fabricate giant wings for the double-decker A380 before the aircraft program concluded in 2020. The site is now being repurposed to handle Airbus’s record backlog of roughly 7,500 A320-family commercial jets, where the popular A321 accounts for approximately 70 percent of orders. To support the operational scale-up, the company is adding around 480 positions across the Broughton complex this year—including roughly 250 posts directly stationed inside the newly retrofitted building—with hiring momentum anticipated to bring nearly 900 new workers into the fold over time.
Technically, the revitalized plant will house six advanced wing assembly jigs, alongside dedicated wing equipping lines and an upgraded paint facility. Assembly teams and industrial engineers collaborated directly on the factory’s layout, embedding advanced ergonomics and streamlined material routing to eliminate production bottlenecks. Work is already underway on the inaugural wing assembly, and all six production jigs are scheduled to become fully operational before the year concludes, laying the industrial groundwork to reach a record output target of 75 aircraft per month across the narrowbody program.
“We aren’t just talking about a ramp-up; we’re putting the infrastructure in place to support it,” said Jérôme Blandin, Head of Airbus Wing. “Around the world today, an A320 Family aircraft takes off or lands every two seconds, with wings designed and built in the UK. Investing in our capacity strengthens our industrial footprint, creates high-value jobs that support the wider UK aerospace sector, and ensures we remain competitive in the years to come.”
The North Wales overhaul complements wider aerospace developments across the British Isles, including ongoing investments in Belfast’s composite wing operations for the A220 jetliner. As commercial airlines continue replacing older fleets with fuel-efficient single-aisle aircraft, repurposing existing large-scale manufacturing infrastructure provides an agile route to scale throughput without the environmental footprint of greenfield construction.
By transforming a landmark facility once built for the world’s largest passenger aircraft into a lean production hub for single-aisle airliners, Airbus cements Broughton’s central role in global aviation. The renewed wing plant positions the UK workforce at the core of commercial aviation deliveries for decades ahead.
