Airbus, one of the UK’s biggest manufacturing employers, has cautioned it might need to stockpile parts to work easily once the UK leaves the EU.

Katherine Bennett, senior VP for Airbus UK, advised the BBC it would need to choose soon about “pressing the button” on accumulating.

“We spend £5bn a year on the UK supply chain… it is really important the parts don’t get held up in warehouses.”

Ms. Bennett said the firm was in discussions with government.

She told the BBC’s Today program that the firm worked a “just in time” production network, which implied that even a three-hour delay at Dover, for instance, would be “a critical issue”.

“We need conditions right for us, we just don’t need these burdens… which may make Airbus think differently [about its base],” she cautioned.

Airbus constructs its planes in four “home” nations crosswise over Europe. In the UK, it manufactures the wings for its planes at Filton, close Bristol, and has different tasks at Broughton in North Wales.

Independently, the organization issued an announcement on Monday saying it would meet European works council members later in the week to discuss the conceivable effect on occupations from a falling creation rates of the A380 and A400M planes.

There have been late press reports of plans for a huge number of occupation cuts at the organization.

Airbus said it had an approach of “first addressing workforce issues with its social partners” previously any open revelation.

In its announcement, the organization said it “deeply regrets that the process on the current subject matter has been disturbed by leaks to the media, which resulted in excessive reporting about alleged job cuts in its four home countries”.