The aerospace and defense industry is one of the few sectors in manufacturing that is currently not only surviving but thriving amid the recession, despite the grim predictions for job losses and bankruptcies among other Canadian manufacturers, plummeting oil prices, and the ever fluctuating CDN dollar. Employment rates and revenue are even continually on the rise.
In the past year, Bombardier Aerospace introduced their much anticipated line of CSeries jets. Magellan Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney Canada invested big time in their Montreal and Winnipeg operations.
According to the AIAC (Aerospace Industries Association of Canada), based in Ottawa, the aerospace sector directly employed 82,000 Canadians in 2007. This is a significant increase from the 79,000 employees working in the industry just a year prior. Aerospace revenue increased by half a billion to $22.7B.
Aircraft parts, components, and planes, jets, etc. account for 55% of the overall revenues for the aerospace sector, the majority of which is generated by exports, especially to the US and European countries. Military sales increased by $5 billion last year, a rise of 18% from 2006.
Helping to fuel the exponential growth of the aerospace sector (no pun intended) is the increase in commercial air travel. The Current Market Outlook for 2007-2008, released by Boeing, predicted that air passenger travel will increase 5% per year, and cargo travel by 5.8%. The forecast extends these numbers for the next two decades.
Quote for April 22nd, 2009:
“The modern airplane creates a new geographical dimension. A navigable ocean of air blankets the whole surface of the globe. There are no distant places any longer: the world is small, and the world is one.”
– Wendell Willkie
