Airbus, TUSAS to produce key part of A350 aircraft

Turkey's Tusas Aerospace Industries (TAI) and Airbus yesterday signed an agreement to produce ailerons, a key piece of airplane wings, for A350 aircraft. Attending the signing ceremony were Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau and German State Minister Europe Gunter Gloser, along with Airbus President Thomas Enders, European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) President Louis Gallois, and TUSAS CEO Atalay Efeer. Speaking at the ceremony, Erdogan said that over the last few years Turkey's aviation industry and civil aviation sector has made remarkable progress. "This $500 million agreement will open new windows of cooperation in the European aviation industry for TAI," he added. "Our aviation technology has made giant strides with projects such as aircraft modernization and unmanned aircraft, done completely by Turkish engineers, to make the Turkish defense and aviation industry into an internationally recognized player."