Hardide plc (LON:HDD) Chief Executive Officer Philip Kirkham caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss Airbus selecting them to replace hard chrome plating on Airbus A330 compression flap pads with its Hardide-A coating.
Q1: We note today that the Hardide coating has been selected to replace the hard chrome plating on Airbus A330 wing components. Phil, can you tell us more about this?
A1: This is a huge vote of confidence by Airbus in the company and follows on from the announcement in May this year that the coating had been selected to replace hard chrome plating on similar parts, compression flap pads, but on the A380 aircraft.
Now, Airbus makes far more A330’s than A380’s so these parts will be used on new build aircraft whereas the ones for the A380 are more of a replacement item during scheduled maintenance so we’ve got much higher volumes and value on these new parts.
We’ve been working with Airbus for more than 10 years now to develop and prove the Hardide-A coating as a replacement for hard chrome plating in extreme conditions so these two announcements, future production orders for the two different aircraft types are very welcome.
Q2: So, what’s next for Hardide and Airbus?
A2: Well, we’ve obviously had a slow start at gaining parts with Airbus but the pace of progress is now increasing. We’ve got numerous other components at various stages of the development and testing process with Airbus and hopefully we will continue to make further announcements on other parts as soon as we’re able to do so.
Q3: What else is Hardide doing in the aerospace sector?
A3: As you can imagine, we see the aerospace market as a major opportunity for the company to grow revenues significantly and expand worldwide.
We’re putting a tremendous amount of effort and resource into this sector and a lot is happening both in Europe and North America. We’re in early discussions with many significant global players and have a number of trial parts coated and currently in evaluation and testing for both civil and military applications.
