By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) -Airbus has launched the biggest shake-up of its manufacturing network in more than a decade, with large-parts activities reorganized in France and Germany and some small-parts production hived off ahead of a possible future sale.

The European planemaker said on Wednesday it would combine aerostructure assembly in France under one entity, bringing major fuselage parts plants in St Nazaire and Nantes together with the worldwide operations of its Stelia affiliate.

In Germany, the Premium Aerotec business will be split, with part of it combined with manufacturing plants in Stade and some of the large Hamburg factory, and the rest folded into a new business specialising in small mass-produced “detail” parts.

“We are in the process of reviewing different ownership structures to identify the best possible solution,” a spokesman said, referring to the new Germany-based detail-parts spin-off.

Those parts can range from small generic items like metal brackets costing a few dollars to complex machined items costing tens of thousands, such as those made in the highly automated Varel plant in Germany.

Also included in the new entity are part of the Augsburg plant in Germany and the Brasov facility in Romania.

The shake-up comes two months after Chief Executive Guillaume Faury declared aerostructures, which includes the manufacturing of fuselage parts, to be “core”.

Once considered the less valuable end of the aerospace spectrum, aerostructures are now increasingly considered vital to the aerodynamically complex designs of the future.

REVERSING POWER8

The rethink draws a line under past efforts to sell the whole of Stelia and PremiumAerotec, which had been carved out in 2009 as part of a restructuring plan called Power8. Industry sources have said few buyers came forward.

However, some industry sources noted Airbus had backed away from reviewing the Bremen plant in Germany, whose future has long been the subject of internal debate as it handles aircraft wing work overlapping with operations in Britain.

The new industrial blueprint, which coincides with a broader restructuring involving up to 15,000 jobs triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, is subject to talks with unions.

It will go into effect at the start of next year and its implementation will be a priority for the company’s new operations chief, Alberto Gutierrez, who moved up from running the military aircraft business in a reshuffle last week.

Discussions continue about manufacturing operations in Spain, which has been hard hit by the halt of production of the A380 superjumbo and a slump in demand for wide-body aircraft.

Airbus officials said they were committed to Spain.

Airbus commercial jetmaking is spread out across a dozen or more plants in France, Germany, Britain and Spain, with final assembly outposts in China and the United States.

The company has traditionally been forced to accommodate political demands from its core European backers to protect manufacturing sites under deals dating back decades.

But the coronavirus crisis has forced it to cut costs while giving it the opportunity to reorganize at a time when output is 40% slower than usual due to the drop in air travel demand.

The shake-up appears to shy away from factory closures but leaves the door open to greater internal competition whenever it launches future aircraft programmes, industry sources said.

Airbus and U.S. rival Boeing are increasingly locked in a battle over production strategy after a long sales boom.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by David Evans and Aurora Ellis)