ROME — The U.K. will hand Leonardo a £1 billion ($1.34 billion) contract to build 23 AW149 helicopters at the firm’s Yeovil plant in the U.K., the British Ministry of Defense said on Monday, ending months of uncertainty over the program.
The deal for the medium-lift helicopters will help save 3,300 jobs at Yeovil — the U.K.’s last helicopter manufacturing facility — the ministry said.
“Thousands of skilled British jobs have been secured with a major helicopter deal that will boost the U.K. Armed Forces’ battlefield kit and makes Britain Leonardo’s global centre for military helicopter production and exports,” the ministry claimed in a statement on Monday.
Italy’s Leonardo, which operates Yeovil, previously said that if the much-delayed deal was called off amid funding uncertainty, the site risked closure.
In its statement, the defense ministry added that since Yeovil was now tasked with building the U.K. order of the AW149, export orders would follow.
“There are around 20 countries with requirements for new medium-lift helicopters (NMH). Together with Leonardo’s other helicopters, international orders for NMH could generate over £15 billion in exports over the next 10 years,” the ministry said.
The 3,300 jobs secured by keeping Yeovil open included 650 working on the NMH and others involved in support for the U.K.’s Merlin and Wildcat helicopter fleets.
That added to 12,000 supply chain jobs in the U.K., said Nigel Colman, Managing Director of Helicopters U.K., Leonardo.
The deal to keep Yeovil open appears to have been helped by the work underway there on Leonardo’s unmanned rotary wing platform Proteus.
“The £1 billion deal will also make Yeovil the centre of excellence for military helicopter autonomy, as the Ministry of Defence invests further in Proteus — the UK’s first autonomous uncrewed air system which is built by Leonardo and recently undertook its first flight,” the ministry said, adding that the platform has “demonstrated it can conduct a range of missions including anti-submarine warfare.”
The ministry added, “The development of uncrewed and autonomous technology in the U.K. is at the heart of the government’s Defence Industrial Strategy and could offer the opportunity to make platforms such as NMH optionally-crewed.”
Defence Secretary John Healey called the deal, “a major vote of confidence in British industry, British workers and British innovation.”
Tom Kington is the Italy correspondent for Defense News.
