In an unprecedented step, the American company Pratt & Whitney opens a factory to manufacture fighter engines in Morocco

US aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney will set up a factory in the Kingdom.

The company is known for being one of the largest manufacturers of aircraft engines, along with General Electric, Rolls-Royce and Safran. The American company, Pratt & Whitney, will be based in Morocco, according to the Moroccan “Le Desk” website.

The site’s sources indicate that the engine manufacturer, which is based in Connecticut and supplies both civil and military aircraft, plans to build a plant in the industrial accelerator zone of Nouaceur (Medparc) on the outskirts of Casablanca.

“According to our information, the future industrial unit will be dedicated to the manufacture, repair and distribution of aviation equipment.”

Currently, the American group has no less than 41 thousand employees distributed in about forty countries. Its profits for the year 2022 amounted to no less than $1.3 billion, and its sales amounted to $20.5 billion.

Pratt & Whitney claims on its website that 16,000 customers use its drives. The company is primarily focused on manufacturing jet engines for large aircraft, supplying engines to both Airbus (A300, A310, A300-600, A318, A320) and its competitor Boeing (707, 727, 737, 747, 767, etc.). Pratt & Whitney also equips Lockheed aircraft such as the F-15, F-16, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with its engines.

According to the information available, Pratt & Whitney has already set up a subsidiary in Morocco, since the beginning of April, across the UK. Pratt & Whitney Morocco will be piloted at launch by Canadian Marc-André Duclos, Pratt & Whitney Canada Quebec director responsible for international manufacturing and relocations, as evidenced by his profile. on LinkedIn.

Duclos will help head the new Moroccan-Polish firm, Alicia Kaleta, the international director of human resources who will take over as vice president of Pratt & Whitney Morocco.

Pratt & Whitney will have a lot to do: with this the engine manufacturer will be able to support Boeing’s industrial ecosystem, strengthening its supply platform in dedicated industrial parks such as Midpark where, among others, another American company, Spirit AeroSystems, specializes in the manufacture of aircraft fuselages.

As a reminder, Morocco pledged to establish in the Kingdom no less than 120 suppliers for the American aircraft factory. In addition to the Boeing Apache helicopters, the American newcomer may also have designs around the military industry in which Morocco intends to position itself. The terms of cooperation in this regard, between Washington and Rabat, may be modified in the future, in the context of future contracts: for example, moreover, Raytheon Technologies, the shareholder of Pratt & Whitney that won in July 2021 the contract for the supply of aircraft engines Moroccan F-16 Viper fighter. The contract, valued at more than $212 million, was for Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 thrusters designed by Raytheon. Manufacturing and assembly of these engines are expected to be completed in East Hartford, Connecticut by the end of June 2025. In August 2022, Raytheon Technologies was also awarded a modified contract worth approximately $133 million to refurbish engine units for certain types of Boeing and General Dynamics fighters, including This includes the F-16 fighters operated by the Moroccan Air Force. The contract provided for the remanufacturing of the engine unit of the Pratt & Whitney F100 turbofan family, including the F100-PW-100/-200/-220/-220E/-229/-229EEP, for FMS (Foreign Military Sales) partner countries.