Midlands aerospace draws a crowd at the Farnborough Airshow

Farnborough Airshow 2024 was a big show for Midlands aerospace. Professionals from across the globe gathered on the MAA stand to explore the latest products, services, capabilities and innovations offered by the region’s companies.

The MAA team enjoyed many stimulating and useful conversations about business and partnership opportunities throughout the week. It was great to see the 26 companies exhibiting on the Midlands stand having so many productive business meetings and showcasing their expertise. Many exhibitors had numerous approaches from potential new customers during the show, which demonstrated the level of interest in what the Midlands has to offer as bigger companies actively seek to expand their supplier bases.

Exhibitors on the MAA stand

The show was busy right from the moment the doors opened on the Monday. Across the week, more than 150 people from our exhibiting companies, as well as the MAA team, worked hard to showcase the best of the Midlands to every visitor. To support this, we launched our new 2024 members directory on the first day of the show with details of over 250 great companies and their capabilities, which flew off the shelves every day.

MAA Chief Executive Andrew Mair and MAA Chair Alan Dunbar with the new directory

High-profile visitors to the MAA stand

Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer visited the UK Pavilion following his speech at the opening of the show and spoke with MAA member, AVPE Systems, part of Broadway Group, one of our exhibitors.

We also had a number of key government visitors to the MAA stand, thanks to the support of the Department of Business and Trade and the ADS public affairs team, including:

• new aerospace minister Sarah Jones MP, Minister of State at both the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Department for Business and Trade, met with exhibitor G&O Springs to get a great SME perspective on industry trends.

Aerospace Minister Sarah Jones with Steve Boyd, G&O Springs

• Catherine Atkinson, MP for Derby North and Baggy Shanker, MP for Derby South, met with local exhibitor Accrofab.
• Jesse Norman, MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, and MAA Chief Executive, Andrew Mair, discussed how the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE) in his constituency is supporting engineering businesses.
• Lord John Spellar, former MP for Warley, advised Andrew on how best to influence government policy to support small manufacturers.

We also had several high-profile industry visits, including. Tendai Mutambirwa from the Civil Aviation Authority met with our Technology Managers to discuss regulation in the advanced air mobility industry. Katherine Bennett CBE, Chief Executive, High Value Manufacturing Catapult met with Andrew Mair. We also had visitors from the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers. Steve Anderson, VP Procurement, Rolls-Royce visited to present one of our exhibitors, Arrowsmith (part of ASG Group), with an SC21 silver award.

Jason Aldridge of Arrowsmith Engineering with the SC21 Silver Award

Giving a global platform to new technologies from the Midlands

The first conference we have organised at an airshow drew a healthy 50 participants. The 'Innovation in the Midlands’ conference, delivered in partnership with the University of Nottingham's Institute for Aerospace Technology, highlighted new technologies and capabilities emerging in lower supply chain tiers as important building blocks for future aerospace and space industry requirements.

The conference gave a number of small Midlands manufacturers opportunities to talk about the innovative projects they’ve been delivering, including Burcas, G&O Springs, P.A.K Engineering, PGM Reball, SHD Composites and ZEEKO.

Over the course of the week, we also shared news from a number of the MAA’s innovation programmes, including…

• Recognising the achievements of companies participating in the £1m Pivot into Space R&D programme.
• The completion of the ASSIST funding matchmaking programme and launch of a report which shared the findings.
• Technology Manager, Clive Lewis chaired the Advanced Air Mobility panel at the Global Urban & Advanced Air Summit at Farnborough Airshow which included discussions about the Drone Ready Cities project we are partnering on with Coventry City Council
• The Decarbonising the Midlands Aerospace Cluster (DMAC) programme has been gaining pace, with a number of companies involved exhibiting at the show.

The Airshow was a great opportunity for the MAA Technology Manager team involved in all of our innovation projects to engage with businesses and have valuable discussions.

Look out for an article with the latest from these projects next week.

A new launchpad into aerospace and space

A new MAA initiative launched just before the airshow – the Supply Chain Transition Programme – is designed to support organisations interested in getting into aerospace and space with entering the sectors, and is run in partnership with Business Growth West Midlands.

The first cohort of participating companies had the opportunity to join discovery tours to help them understand business opportunities in the sectors, led by our Technology Managers. The tours took companies to targeted locations, giving helpful insights into the aerospace and space industries, and providing opportunities to meet key industry players relevant to their business growth objectives.

Popular networking events drew in a crowd

The MAA Member Services Team created two great opportunities to network. The first, our fully-booked industry dinner on Tuesday at the prestigious Aviator Hotel, created an enjoyable evening of business conversations. Thank you to our event partner, Gowling WLG, and to Helix for supporting the drinks reception.

Guests enjoy the MAA Farnborough dinner at the Aviator Hotel

The networking reception on our stand on Wednesday – supported by Trigabore – drew in a crowd from across the show. It was a great chance for people who came along to catch up with industry peers and make new contacts.

Sangha Metrology launch their new Trigabore line of precision instruments at the MAA Farnborough reception

Bringing the regions together

It was great to have all the UK regional aerospace alliances back together alongside the MAA in the UK Pavilion at Farnborough – including Aerospace Wales Forum, Farnborough Aerospace Consortium, North West Aerospace Alliance, and the West of England Aerospace Forum – alongside ADS and Invest Northern Ireland.

Together, the regional alliances met with major defence company MBDA during the show to discuss the potential for holding supply chain opportunity events later in the year. UK regions that – like the MAA - are members of the European Aerospace Cluster Partnership also gathered with peer organisations from across the world for a Global Aerospace Cluster Partnership networking meeting at the Irish Embassy in London.

Regional aerospace clusters from around the world meet at the Irish Embassy

Thank you to all our exhibitors, and to everyone who visited, including our members and MAA directors, for helping us make the show such a success!

Don’t miss out on your chance to grow your business!

If you are interested in exhibiting with us at Paris Air Show in June 2025 and would like the opportunity to stand out and be noticed, we have a limited number of places available and they’re already going fast with several already reserved at the Farnborough Airshow. Register your interest here today.