[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

Airbus, like any large manufacturer would need to balance friction vs. costs of both moving and manufacture. The cost of moving is pretty much set and Airbus already manufactures in China and US so it would be more expansion than setting up new plants.

The UK is an expensive place to makes things. This will be balanced with frictionless movement between the UK and Toulouse so things even up. Airbus could move wing manufacture to the EU zone where the costs would be similar but frictionless or somewhere cheap and accept the friction costs. Expensive and friction doesn't add up.

A good way of analysing the situation.
Some further insightful analysis from Paratus in the comments section of the FT.

Even allowing for the usual downward spiral into Brexit/Bremain accusations and counter-accusations in this comments string, I am still amazed at how ignorant most commenters here are of the part in the global aircraft industry that Airbus plays - and thus the UK's current stake in it.
Airbus produces roughy 800 commercial airliners a year. That's more or less 130 wings a month - most produced in 2 large UK factories: Filton and Hawarden (they're don't make all the parts for the whole wing - mainly the structural 'box'; but they do make several other Airbus-wing components).
There are 2 main elements that make an airliner more (or less) efficient, and therefore competitive: its engines and its wing-aerodynamics. On the latter, BAE Systems earned its place in the consortium not just because it could produce the wings themselves efficiently, but also because they've been critical to their design since the start of Airbus. These wings still are, arguably, the world's most aerodynamically-advanced for commercial-aircraft.

For all those folks mumbling on here about supply-chains, think 100+ aircraft wings per month, not cars. Once finished, these large objects are transported by specialised aircraft, barge, or ship; but before that, components within these sizeable structures come & go many times between suppliers and across borders before the final article (a multi-tonne wing-box) is ready to be shipped. Delay is not permissible: you don't set a couple of wings aside for each aircraft type in case there's a customs problem with next week's deliveries.

Going on here about assembly-lines in China or the USA merely reflects reality in today's globalised aircraft industry, not some death-knell for the home-industry...although customs and tariffs clearly play their part in arriving at 'the deal' in these markets. To sell any complex, expensive pieces of equipment into any large market, there is always offset, or local manufacture and/or assembly. For large markets (e.g. USA, China), incorporating 'local' assembly of aircraft, and/or manufacturing subassemblies in deals is a normal part of commercial life. For all that, though, the main assembly-work, technology, and design lead-times, still need to happen from within Airbus' (in this case) organisation, of which the UK is currently an important part.

However, a 10-year cycle in the aerospace business is nothing - in fact it's probably a minimum development, test and production life-cycle on any project seeking a business return. Airbus will have been thinking about the Brexit effect for at least 2 years - and its thinking will have had little to do with the logistics, per se, of moving large bits of aircraft around the world to assembly-lines, including its own: that's relatively easy, and already happens. (Boeing does the same.)

For Airbus to disengage itself from the UK-based parts of its business entails managing the disruption of a large-scale version of 'just-in-time' manufacturing. They'll not do that lightly - it'll be expensive as well as logistically-disruptive; but they'll have a lot less trouble achieving that than we (the UK) would in managing the enormous consequent losses to our technological and manufacturing knowledge-base.
Facts...

https://www.ft.com/content/595220cc-...6-75a27d27ea5f