Latécoère to Produce Ventilator Components at Hermosillo Plant

As the COVID-19 outbreak shrank demand for aircraft and aerospace components, some companies are using this period to adapt their product lines to current needs and support efforts to fight the outbreak. French aerostructure supplier Groupe Latécoère, for instance, has adapted some of its production lines in Hermosillo, Sonora, to produce components for ventilators.

The COVID-19 outbreak rapidly increased the need for ventilators to support critical care patients affected by the disease, leading ventilator manufacturers to ramp up production to get these life saving devices to those who need them as fast as possible. However, as the virus continued to spread rapidly, companies in unrelated sectors stepped up to the plate to support ventilator production. Groupe Latécoère has spent over 100 years building its capabilities in design, manufacturing, assembly and installation of aerospace components, capabilities that allowed the company to become a thrusted supplier for Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer, among many others. Now, as the COVID-19 crisis rampages through the aerospace industry, Latécoère turns its capabilities in Mexico toward the production of ventilator components.

Latécoère Mexico, based in Hermosillo, Sonora, has a manufacturing facility of 16,000m2 where it produces passenger doors, harnesses, complete wings, wingtips, flaps, power feeders and vertical tail plane harnesses. To avoid cutting personnel and production, the aerostructures supplier turned its capabilities to components for the CAE Air1 and CAE Air2 ventilators. Designed by Canadian aviation, defense and healthcare specialist CAE, the CAE Air1 is a continuous mechanical ventilator with an adjustable percentage of oxygen indicated for adult patients with respiratory insufficiency. Ventilators are greatly increasing in demand alongside positive COVID-19 cases, with some estimates indicating that the world will need 880,000 units more during the crisis. Before the outbreak, only a limited number of companies produced them but with the growing threat of COVID-19 more and more companies are stepping up to the plate.