A Thales unit in Irvine that makes entertainment systems for airline passengers is hiring at a heady clip, even for the hot aerospace industry.
The unit, part of France’s Thales, said it aims to have more than 800 workers by the end of next year, up from 500 now.
At the end of 2004, the inflight entertainment unit had just 235 people here.
The projected growth would put Thales among the top 10 aerospace employers in Orange County.
“We’re on a vertical growth curve,” said Brad Foreman, vice president and general manager of Thales in Irvine. “We’re doing a lot of innovation.”
Thales’ entertainment systems let passengers access movies, the Internet and check out scenery via mounted cameras on the plane. Airlines in China and India have bought systems from Thales in the past few years.
Thales does engineering, production and some sales and marketing in Irvine. The company’s hiring has been for engineering and manufacturing.
Earlier this year, Thales moved from a 100,000-square-foot building in Costa Mesa to a 130,000-square-foot building in Irvine on Discovery. It had planned to use only two-thirds of the bigger building.
Now the company is renovating the remaining space to make room for more people, including engineers who are using training rooms until their offices are ready.
Thales said it’s looking for another 40,000-square-foot building nearby.
Thales also has a joint venture with Raytheon Co., ThalesRaytheonSystems Co., which has separately run operations in Fullerton.
The inflight entertainment unit has rivals in OC, considered a hub for the sector.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Rockwell Collins Inc. is shuttering operations in Pomona and moving about 500 workers to a 213,000-square-foot site in Tustin. Another 130 workers are moving from another Tustin site and one in Costa Mesa.
The move, expected to wrap up next year, combines Rockwell Collins’ engineering for passenger entertainment systems.
Rockwell Collins doesn’t have plans for hiring, said Randy Lincoln, vice president for sales and marketing.
Panasonic Avionics Corp., part of Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., has its inflight entertainment research arm in Lake Forest. The site, which has more than 600 workers, expects to boost hiring by more than 10% this year, said David Bruner, director of strategic product marketing.
The Lake Forest facility is the largest and fastest growing of Panasonic Avionics’ sites, Bruner said.
Boeing, meanwhile, bases its Connexion inflight high-speed Internet unit in Irvine.
Thales entered the inflight entertainment business in the late 1990s when it bought a stake in Florida-based B/E Aerospace Inc.’s operations in Costa Mesa. Thales became the sole owner of the operation about a year later.
By 2000, Thales had to decide whether to spend $10 million on upgrading its old inflight systems or $100 million on an entirely new system.
The 2001 terrorist attacks,and the downturn they brought to the airline industry,gave Thales the time needed to develop the system.
Instead of coming up with its own technology, Thales went out and got the best gear it could get, essentially creating a computer network for a plane.
It bought Ethernet switches from Broadcom Corp., disk drives from Seagate Technology and a Linux operating system.
Using common computer products and software allows other devices to easily plug into Thales’ systems, according to the company. Universal serial bus connections can link to digital music players and cameras.
The pitch to airlines: more audio and video offerings, including video on demand.
Panasonic also uses Ethernet networking. Rockwell Collins has stuck with cable modem technology.
Thales is establishing itself in a market that Rockwell and Panasonic have largely dominated during the past few years, observers said.
Though Thales’ inflight systems use cutting-edge technology, it’s not clear this will become the standard in the industry, said Sally Gethin, publisher of Gethin’s Inflight News in London.
“Thales,while showing promise,really does have a long road to travel,” Gethin said.
India and China have been the biggest buyers for Thales, though airlines in other parts of Asia, the Middle East and Latin America also have signed contracts. Europe has had growth of 3% to 5% annually, according to Thales.
In the U.S., Chicago-based United Airlines bought from Thales. But most U.S. airlines have been in no mood to spend money. High costs and competition from low-priced carriers have put many airlines near or in bankruptcy.
“The U.S. market has to recover at some point,” Foreman said.
A rebound here could drive headcount at Thales in Irvine well above 1,000 people, he said.
