A GLOBAL aerospace and defence firm, which employs about 50 people at a North-East airport, says it is positive about its future after revealing a solid £2.4bn order book.

Cobham, the world's largest commercial provider of civil and military flight inspection services, says operations have matched bosses' expectations, with its financial position offset by a £24m planned investment in the UK Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) consortium.

The FTSA programme will provide air-refuelling and air transport services to the RAF, replacing its current fleet of aircraft.

Cobham also revealed its net deb grew to £382m for the end of March, which was down to the £39m impact of translation exchange rates.

Earlier this year, Cobham, which covers flight navigation aids for moving landing strips on military ships, announced six redundancies at Durham Tees Valley Airport (DTVA) as part of 76 job cuts across its Teesside and Bournemouth bases.

The firm revealed its order intake had fallen from £2.4m to £1.6m, with revenue dropping from 1.8m to £1.7m, but said it had no plans to cut further jobs at DTVA.

Staff at the airport work on a number of services, including instrument landing systems, high-frequency direction finders, airfield ground lighting and tactical air navigation equipment.