Aerospace industry calls on government for more support to tackle decarbonisation

Cash-strapped UK aerospace manufacturers need the government to step up the funding available for research into green technologies or risk losing out to overseas competitors, a senior industry leader has warned. Although the UK government continues to contribute through the Aerospace Technology Institute, the Covid-19 crisis has left many in the supply chain unable to fund R&D activities adequately, says Tony Wood, Meggitt CE and president of the ADS trade body. Wood, speaking Tuesday during a webinar to unveil interim decarbonisation goals for UK aviation, said that projects were currently “only funded to about 50%” of the level necessary and called for a “doubling of fnding” from the government. Pointing out that for every GBP1 of funding, another GBP10 is spent by the industry on R&D activities, he says there is a “phenomenal opportunity for government to invest”, particularly “when even finding the pound will be quite a challenge for those companies with weak balance sheets”. Although thanking the government for the implementation of general coronavirus support initiatives such as Job Retention Scheme and the Covid Corporate Financing Facility, Wood points out that “eventually those schemes fall away and the industry still has its day of reckoning”. Companies with the biggest exposure to civil aerospace were facing “very difficult questions on investment”, he says.<br/>