Connecticut’s Aerospace Industry accounted for almost half of the state’s $15 billion of exported commodities last year. Many of the state’s aerospace companies got a boost recently from the Farnborough International Air Show in England.
Smaller Connecticut aerospace companies have been getting help to go to the big air shows, like the one in Farnborourgh, from the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development.
Tens of thousands of business visits take place at Farnborough, the DECD brought eleven companies overseas this month to take part.
PCX Aerostructures is one of those companies. It’s a century old, and is based in Hartford. It produces precision parts for helicopters and planes.
Kathy Morin is PCX’s marketing manager. She said the air show has allowed her company to expand its business beyond the domestic market it used to be focused on.
"When you return from a show and you look at your list of significant contacts that were made," Morin said, "and you come up with some of the most well known names in the industry, I think you walk away with just a great feeling that you're helping to put Connecticut on the map and you’re helping to expand your business."
PCX’s international business has almost doubled in the eight years it’s been going to the air shows, accounting for more than $7.5 million in exports.
The DECD started boosting Connecticut companies' presence at Farnborough and a big show in Paris in 2006. The department said a decade of air shows has been responsible for $400 million in sales.
