Canada’s Bombardier Inc shocked workers in Northern Ireland on Thursday by announcing it would sell its Belfast operation, the largest high-tech manufacturer in the British region, which employs 3,600 people.
Located yards from the Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic, the plant in British-run Northern Ireland is by far the most important manufacturer left in its capital city, once one of the key industrial centres of the British empire.
The decision is part of a plan to combine Bombardier’s corporate and regional jet units into a single aviation unit and shed more assets, including its Belfast and Morocco aerostructures businesses.
