Fairchild Dornier on December 20 sold its Airbus components manufacturing and general maintenance businesses to Switzerland’s RUAG Aerospace after weeks of intense competition between the Swiss firm and the Russian partnership of Irkutsk Aircraft Works and Basic Element. On the same day, bankruptcy administrator Eberhard Braun announced that Leesburg, Va.-based AvCraft Aviation won the rights to Fairchild’s 328JET manufacturing and support division, conditional on various legal and board approvals.
The deals come after Irkutsk and Basic Element submitted a bid for the Airbus parts division that differed in several points from previously negotiated agreements and required further talks between the bidder and the failed company’s creditor committee. Their latest bid essentially withdrew the firm offer for the 728 project–the company’s most expensive element–in favor of a more definitive commitment for the components division. According to Braun, partly because the Russian bid included only an option for the 728 and excluded any interest in the general maintenance business, RUAG’s offer, which included both the Airbus and maintenance work at Fairchild’s Oberpfaffenhofen headquarters, proved superior.
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