Airbus has warned it could leave the UK if the country exits the European Union single market and customs union without a transition deal.
The European planemaker said the warning was not part of “project fear, but its “dawning reality”.
Airbus employs about 14,000 people at 25 different sites in the UK.
Last week, the outgoing president of the CBI said sections of UK industry faced extinction unless the UK stayed in the EU customs union.
It brings together the EU’s 28 members in a duty-free area, with a common import tariff for non-EU goods.
Prime Minister Theresa May has ruled out staying in the customs union. The UK is due to leave the EU on Friday, 29 March, 2019.
In its Brexit “risk assessment” published on Thursday, Airbus said if the UK left the EU next year without a deal – meaning it left both the single market and customs union immediately and without any agreed transition – it would “lead to severe disruption and interruption of UK production”.
