On Friday 17th June, FACC inaugurated its new plant for the production of lightweight components for business jet and commercial aircraft cabin interiors. The facility, which so far represents an investment of approximately EUR 15 million, began operations in December 2021 following 10 months of construction at the site in Jakovlje, Croatia.
FACC chose the site due to its excellent local infrastructure, its proximity to Zagreb, and its easy logistics connections to FACC’s corporate headquarters in Austria and the company’s European customers. The area also offers highly trained experts, and the universities in the surrounding area have highly qualified specialists in many relevant fields.
The inauguration of FACC’s Jakovlje facility was celebrated by the company’s entire Croatian workforce, together with 400 invited guests
The company expects to be recruiting more of the local workforce too, as FACC’s CEO, Robert Machtlinger, explained: “After the successful start with more than 170 employees, we plan to expand the workforce of the plant to around 600 employees within the next four years.”
One of the highlights of the inauguration was a helicopter show by Austrian aviation icon Felix Baumgartner, who landed directly in front of the building
The construction of the new FACC plant was planned in close cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute, considering cutting-edge aspects of industrial manufacturing. Scalability was a fundamental prerequisite for the design of both the interior and the exterior of the building, so the plant enables modular extensions to be built as required, integrated with the existing structure. Indeed FACC is already starting the next expansion phase of the site, with stages 2 and 3, which will see a three-fold increase in the size of the plant, now under construction.
Felix Baumgartner officially opened the new plant together with CEO Robert Machtlinger, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, and Pang Zhen, chairman of FACC’s supervisory board
