Today, the Airbus sites at Filton, near Bristol, and Broughton, North Wales, are part of the Centre of Excellence - Wing/Pylon – working together with Airbus sites in Bremen, Germany and St. Eloi in Toulouse. Around 140,000 jobs are generated in the UK by Airbus wing work, directly as well as indirectly through supplier contracts.

At Filton, over 4,500 people are employed in the design office and in business support roles such as procurement, finance and customer service. Core activities at Filton include the design, engineering and support for Airbus wings, fuel systems and landing gear integration. Teams also work on systems, structures, and aerodynamics research, development and test facilities.

More than 2,000 engineers at Filton are involved in a range of areas, including wing integration, flight physics, structures and systems. Filton also is responsible for wing assembly and equipping for the A400M multi-role airlifter, and is home to a Composites Structures Development Centre.

Broughton – which produced such aviation classics as De Havilland’s Comet and Mosquito during its history – is responsible for assembling the wings for all Airbus civil aircraft. The site employs more than 5,000 people – primarily in manufacturing, but also in engineering and support functions such as procurement and finance.

After assembly at Broughton, the A380’s wings are transported by road and then by river craft to Mostyn harbour, where they are loaded onto a custom-built roll-on, roll-off ferry for the trip to France.