Spirit AeroSystems (Europe) Limited is based at sites at Prestwick in Ayrshire and Samlesbury, Lancashire. The Prestwick site is home to around 750 employees and is one of the larger employers in the local area. An additional 80 staff are based at Samlesbury in Lancashire. Spirit's European operation produces wing components for the Boeing 767 and 777, and the Raytheon Hawker 850XP. Its aviation history in the United Kingdom dates back to the early days of large scale airplane production in Scotland in the 1930s.
The facility in Prestwick, Scotland, produces structural components, chiefly on wings, for the Airbus A320, A330, A340 and A380 families of aircraft.
The site provides customers in the commercial aerospace market with airframe structures. At manufacturing and engineering levels this involves producing leading and trailing edges for Airbus wing assemblies, leading edge production for Boeing wings and the manufacture of tailplane (the horizontal tail surfaces), ventral tanks and other items for the Raytheon Aircraft Company.
Spirit AeroSystems (Europe) Limited works closely with customers and is involved in the development of innovative production methods and procedures which are achieved through Global Supply Operations. Relationships with suppliers based across Europe, the United States, the Far East and South Africa have been developed to help deliver cost and efficiency savings back to customers.