Rolls and Siemens fly high at air show

ROLLS ROYCE was one of several companies to announce large contracts at Farnborough Air Show, writes Mary Fagan.

Rolls said American Trans Air, the 10th-largest airline in the US, had ordered RB211-535E4 engines worth pounds 60m for six Boeing-757 aircraft.

Siemens said hundreds of British jobs were secured by the award of a contract to replace all Sweden's air traffic control centres as part of a project worth pounds 100m.

Much of the equipment will be produced at the Siemens Plessey factories at Chessington, in Surrey, and Cowes on the Isle of Wight, helping to protect the future of the workforce at two plants.

Shorts, the Belfast aerospace manufacturer, announced a sizeable contract to support US Army military transport aircraft. Shorts has teamed up with Duncan Aviation, based in Nebraska, in a five-year deal worth more than pounds 20m to the Northern Ireland company.

Airbus Industrie, the European aircraft consortium in which British Aerospace is a partner, announced an order from TransAsia Airways for two A321 jets to be delivered in the second half of 1996.

The company gave no financial details of the deal.