Potez Aéronautique: Growing Ambitions

Article Source: https://www.annonces-landaises.com/actualites/potez-aeronautique-ambitions-croissantes/

Growing by 15 to 30% per year and expanding internationally, the over-centenary company from Aire-sur-l’Adour, specializing in complex aerostructures and cabin interiors for civil and military aircraft, has just opened a new training center to train its future employees, as it has done for over 20 years.

The figures might make many local entrepreneurs, currently facing an uncertain economic climate, dizzy. At Potez Aéronautique, annual growth has been around 15 to 30% over the last five years, with a turnover of 78 million euros in 2023, and on track to reach 100 million euros. On the Aire-sur-l’Adour site alone, the number of employees has risen from 330 to 800 during the same period, and a total of 1,300 people work for the group across Landes, France, and internationally.

An Industrial Family Saga

“We are among the rare companies that continued to grow during COVID, fortunate to have a well-distributed activity between defense and civil, with the military part compensating for the civil declines with its growth. 2024 is also a very good year, showing dynamic growth,” assures CEO Antoine Potez, great-grandson of founder Henry Potez, who co-invented, with Marcel Dassault, the “hélice éclair” (lightning propeller) in the early 20th century, which soon equipped the majority of Allied aircraft during World War I.

In 1924, in Méaulte, his hometown in the Somme, Henry Potez built an industrial complex that would become, until the nationalizations of 1936, one of the most modern and important aeronautical factories in the world. That year, the industrialist presented the Potez 25 at the 9th International Aeronautical Exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, a military aircraft intended for reconnaissance and bombing operations, which became legendary in the hands of Jean Mermoz and Henri Guillaumet when it crossed the Andes for Aéropostale.

In 1958, the Henry Potez group acquired Air Fouga, the creator of the Fouga Magister, another legendary aircraft that flew the colors of the Patrouille de France from 1964 to 1980, and whose parts were manufactured in Aire-sur-l’Adour. Taking over the Landes factory, the Toulouse-Blagnac site, and the design office, the former company then transformed into Potez-Air-Fouga, and in 1960, it simply became Potez.

Acquisition of Metraltec

The Aire-sur-l’Adour site, where its headquarters are now located, has continued to develop, opening up more and more to civil aviation and passenger transport parts. Upon the patriarch’s death at 90, his grandson Roland succeeded him in 1991, making the company a “Tier 1 supplier to the largest aircraft manufacturers,” soon with a design office for projects ranging from design to customer support in operations, and, of course, manufacturing. In 2022, he handed over to his sons, Antoine and Henry, equal shareholders. The former became group president, while the latter is now more specifically in charge of the site recently acquired in the Spanish Basque Country.

For several years now, Potez Aéronautique has been growing outside of Landes: the creation of a production site in Seville in 2016 (120 people), the acquisition of Aérofonctions, based in Figeac (Lot) to diversify into composite materials, a partnership with the company AAA with a view to establishing itself in India through the joint venture AAA Potez Technology India Ltd, and then last November, the acquisition of Metraltec (renamed Potez Aeronotika), a Spanish family company from Vitoria-Gasteiz, specializing in the manufacturing of elemental metal parts for civil and military programs with 70 highly qualified employees in machining, surface treatment, and painting. “Other development projects are in the pipeline; the trend should continue,” assures Antoine Potez.

Meanwhile, the president of Potez Aéronautique was particularly proud to inaugurate the group’s new training center just before Christmas in Aire-sur-l’Adour, a stone’s throw from the Gaston-Crampe school complex, where he and his brother studied. “This center is not simply a building but a vision, a commitment to professional training, intended to meet the needs for skilled labor in the aeronautical sector, and more specifically for our production site here for its own development. This site is an educational project that demonstrates our ability to respond to the current challenges facing the entire sector,” he insists.

Here, vocational training originated in the early 1990s with his father and his team at the time. “It wasn’t an ordinary or classic initiative; the industry was more focused on production than on training,” recalled Roland Potez, “but faced with the educational system’s shortcomings that ignored industry, and the lack of offerings for our trades when they preferred to train BTS (Brevet de Technicien Supérieur) in stationery, we took our destiny into our own hands to create this tool that has seen the remarkable development we know today. Without this ability to train passionate young people, there would probably no longer be an aeronautical industry in Aire.”

Hires After Training

A strategic shift towards this new center, just steps from the historic factory, occurred four years ago during a roundtable in Toulouse on the labor shortage. “By analyzing the data, I understood that about 70% of our fitters/assemblers came from our CQPM (joint metallurgy qualification certificate) certified training. An impressive figure that explains the stability of our productive workforce to date. Over time, we have been able to compensate for retirements, in particular, with local talents whom we have trained ourselves. This internal capability is a key differentiating element of our competitiveness against competitors,” according to Antoine Potez.

And while, at one time, his father was tempted to move part of the production to Morocco or Eastern European countries for “low-cost” labor, the family’s attachment to the region has always been stronger so far, to “develop local activity and economy. Potez is the X-factor for our city, maximum attractiveness,” praised Mayor Xavier Lagrave during the inauguration of this “training center,” as written in blue on the brand-new building housing a 350 m² workshop, three classrooms, and two offices.

Control agents, fitters, machinists, boilermakers, painters… Now, four training programs can be offered here simultaneously to about fifty people by a team consisting of an educational coordinator, a technical coordinator, a corporate tutoring coordinator, and eight permanent trainers, explained Cyril Alvarez, head of training, who also attended the Gaston-Crampe school complex.

“Making the Future Possible”

The local school is, logically, one of the partners with whom Potez works to ensure its training missions, as are, among others, France Travail, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, IFI Peinture, UIMM, Morgan Services, Derichebourg, Manpower, Adecco…

“The people who come to train at Potez come from very diverse backgrounds, often in career retraining, and with gender parity. It’s also rewarding for them to work in aeronautics rather than elsewhere, and they are hired afterwards,” explains Olivier Senaux, head of several Proman temporary employment agencies in the Southwest.

For 2025, new professions will be added to the existing training programs, such as method technician or composite material repair operator. “We are already ready to meet the challenge of the coming years, for a solid future for our local talents and to make Potez shine in the sky of excellence,” emphasized Cyril Alvarez, concluding in the manner of Saint-Exupéry: this future, “it is not a question of foreseeing it, but of making it possible.”

In Numbers

• 78 million euros in turnover in 2023, heading towards 100 million for the next fiscal year.
• Over 1,300 employees, including 800 at the Aire-sur-l’Adour site where the headquarters are based. Also present in Figeac (Lot), Bayonne, Bordeaux, Santo Tirso (Portugal), Seville, Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain), and India.
• About fifty people can be simultaneously trained in the group’s new training center inaugurated in December.

Ramp-up for Military Aviation

In the Concorde building of the Aire-sur-l’Adour factory, sections of the Falcon 2000, A400M (military transport), or Rafale are assembled before being sent to aircraft manufacturers for final assembly via exceptional convoys. “For two or three years, we have increased from rate 1 to rate 4 to support Dassault, which has sold a lot for export,” explains Aurélien Homblé, production director at Potez Aéronautique. At the same time, employees are now often working 2/8 or 3/8 shifts to meet orders on the Rafale line.

At Potez, parts for the U.S. military’s radar aircraft are also assembled, kept well out of sight. A little further on, in the Falcon building, leak tests are conducted on wings of other civil or military aircraft, while movable and fixed leading edges, designed to increase wing lift during landing, are polished by hand and robot in the Fouga Magister hangar area.