Teresa Wat, MLA for Richmond Centre and Minister of International Trade at the time, toured the former Vector Aerospace in 2014. Taken over by Arizona-based StandardAero late last year, the Sea Island facility’s near 300 skilled jobs are being lost to Winnipeg and Prince Edward Island.
Almost 300 workers at a Richmond aerospace facility face losing their jobs, unless they relocate to Winnipeg or Prince Edward Island (PEI).
The highly-skilled positions at StandardAero – an Arizona-based firm, which took over Vector Aerospace’s helicopter engine services at YVR’s South Terminal late last year – will be phased out over the next year or so.
StandardAero is in the process of winding down its Richmond operation and moving the majority of it to Winnipeg and PEI as part of a “restructuring program.”
Spokesman for the company Kyle Hultquist said its “goal is to help all of these employee obtain jobs at either StandardAero location or other companies.”
Hultquist added that StandardAero “made the difficult decision to wind down operations at the Richmond facility over the next 12-18 months.
“During this time, we will transfer our dynamic components work from Richmond to the company’s Langley facility and we will transition our Richmond helicopter engine MRO and LRU capabilities to StandardAero’s facilities in Winnipeg.
“For the next four to five months, operations will continue as usual. At the end of that time, we will begin the movement of the work and we anticipate that the transition will continue into 2019.”
Hultquist said that employees impacted by the closure will be eligible for a variety of company-funded redeployment, outplacement and transition services.
He said the company anticipates “several waves of employee exits beginning in the fourth quarter of this year and through the end of the transition process.”
One of StandardAero’s six Winnipeg plants is in the process of being retrofitted to take on helicopter work that had been done in Richmond.
According to its website, StandardAero has “become one of the world aerospace industry’s largest independent maintenance, repair and overhaul providers.” StandardAero has operations around the world.
