Collins Aerospace building new plant in Singapore

Collins Aerospace, an RTX business and the largest employer in Cedar Rapids, last week announced it will relocate its Singapore manufacturing facility to the Seletar Aerospace Park in Singapore, home to leading aerospace companies.

Construction of the $250 million facility is expected to begin in late 2025 and be completed by 2027, the company announced at the Farnborough Air Show in London.

Production is anticipated to commence in 2028, with dual production capability maintained at the current Bedok facility over a multiyear transition plan.

“This new facility will be a hub of innovation, leveraging cutting-edge technology to support aerospace components' design, development and production,” Henry Brooks, president of Collins Power & Controls, said in a news release.

The investment, he said, “underscores our long-term commitment to Singapore.”

Collins was one of the first aerospace companies to establish a presence in the Singapore in 1975. The Bedok site over the past 50 years has been a key supplier to Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer and Gulfstream.

"We are committed to making this transition as seamless as possible for our customers," said Aaron Tan, senior director for Global Ops, Singapore Operations at Collins.

Turkey contract

RTX also announced at the air show that Freebird Airlines, an international airline based in Turkey and Malta with a fleet of 14 Airbus A320s, has selected Collins Aerospace to provide the Ascentia aircraft maintenance platform for its carriers.

The cloud-based data management and analytics platform analyzes maintenance data that will lower maintenance costs and time on the ground.

The agreement adds to a suite of Collins programs used by Freebird, including OpsCore for aircraft flight tracking, ARINC Hermes for message management and GLOBALink SM for communication services.

Collins Aerospace, which has 80,000 worldwide, has nearly 9,000 employees in Iowa, including 7,000 in Cedar Rapids.

Quarterly report

RTX on Thursday released its earnings report for the second quarter, with sales of $19.8 billion, up 8 percent from the second quarter last year, and a 10 percent “organic” sales growth. The company reported an operating cash flow of $2.7 billion.

RTX said in a news release it has a backlog of $206 billion in contracts — $129 billion commercial and $77 billion defense — “and unprecendeted demand across our portfolio.”

Collins Aerospace reported second-quarter sales of $6.999 million, up 10 percent over the previous year. The increase was driven by a 12 percent increase in commercial aftermarket, a 10 percent increase in commercial and a 7 percent increase in defense.

Collins Aerospace reported an operating profit of $1.118 million, up 24 percent over the previous year.

Pratt & Whitney also reported significant increases in sales and operating profit.

Raytheon, the third RTX business, reported a sales decline of 3 percent compared to last year, though RTX noted Raytheon’s sales were up 4 percent over last year when the impact of acquisition and divestitures was deducted.