Alabama State thanks GKN Aerospace.

Tallassee Alabama facility and workforce grow by 50% in 2 years to support expanding aerospace market.

In a ceremony in the GKN facility at Farnborough Airshow today, (July 14th) representatives from Elmore County, Alabama presented GKN Aerospace with a plaque to recognise the Company's commitment to its growing Alabama based operation and to the surrounding community and its economy.
Eric Basinger, Executive Director, Elmore County Economic Development Authority stated: "GKN Aerospace has added more than 500 jobs to their Alabama operations since 2005.
Their increase in new programs has demonstrated that the Alabama facility is capable of contributing to the best aerospace production programs in the world. The reason Elmore County is making this special recognition at the Farnborough Air Show is due to GKN Aerospace's outstanding dedication to their business and community."

The team at GKN Aerospace, Tallassee, Alabama, manufactures assemblies for civil and military aircraft programs such as the Sikorsky Blackhawk, Airbus A330/340 and A380 jetliners, the F-22 and for the GEnx engine for GE. Two years ago GKN Aerospace commenced an extension, increasing the floorspace at its Tallassee facility by 50% - to 380,000ft2. This space will allow for the growth in activity required to meet a significant increase in sales volumes over the next 3-5 years. Revenues are expected to increase from USD200m today to over USD250million by the end of 2009.

Marcus Bryson, Chief Executive Officer of GKN Aerospace commented: "The standard and consistency of the contribution the Alabama team makes is second to none - and the growing quantity of manufacturing taking place there is a mark of our customer's recognition of this. Organic growth has been exceptionally strong in good part as a result of growing success supporting Sikorsky on the Blackhawk program. Most recently the Alabama site has been awarded a contract for the manufacture of the state-of-the-art all-composite fuselage for the new Honda Jet. And the site is also well positioned to support Airbus on the new A350 and EADS/Northrop on the USAF refuelling tanker, if selected."

Bryson concluded: "We must thank Elmore County, and Alabama State for their very real, constant and active commitment to our operation from the outset. In many ways it is us that should be presenting an award to them today - as their involvement and support has, and is, a key element in the success of our Alabama operation."
GKN Aerospace is the aerospace operation of GKN plc (LSE:GKN), one of the world's largest engineering companies. GKN Aerospace serves a global customer base with some 8500 personnel operating in North and South America, Australia, the Asia Pacific and Europe and offering 24 hour 'follow the sun' engineering. With sales of GBP1bn (USD2bn), the business is focused around three major product areas - aerostructures, propulsion systems and transparencies, plus a number of specialist product areas - electro-thermal ice protection, fuel and flotation systems, and bullet resistant glass. The business is equally split along military and civil lines with participation on all major aircraft programmes today exceeding USD1m per ship set. GKN Aerospace is a major supplier of complex composite structures; offers one of the most comprehensive capabilities in high performance metallics processing and is the world leading supplier of cockpit transparencies and passenger cabin windows.