Airbus Opening Assembly Line in Alabama
European aviation company Airbus has announced on Monday that the company will open its first assembly line in Mobile, Alabama, to assemble passenger airplanes in the family of A320, including the A319 and A321 aircraft.
This new plant would cost $600 million to build, and will open 2,500 construction jobs, providing stable employment opportunities to 1,000 people upon completion.
According to the press release, the construction of the assembly line will start in the summer of next year, while the Aircraft assembly itself will start in 2015. The Alabama facility will produce 40-50 aircraft annually by 2018.
“The time is right for Airbus to expand in America,” said Fabrice Brégier, Airbus President & CEO at the announcement today in Mobile. “The U.S. is the largest single-aisle aircraft market in the world – with a projected need for 4,600 aircraft over the next 20 years - and this assembly line brings us closer to our customers. Mobile is now becoming part of Airbus’ global production network, joining our successful and growing assembly lines in Hamburg, Toulouse and Tianjin.”
This assembly line will be the second plant outside Europe for the A320, and would help the company to compete with the archrival Boeing. BBC has reported that at this time the company is producing 37 planes per month between France and Germany and three per month in China; however, by the end of this year, it plans to reach 38 planes per month in Europe and four in China.
Airbus entered the market in the early seventies, and airliners by Airbus range from 100 to more than 500 seats. More than 470 customers and operators in the world have bought over 11,500 Airbus aircraft and more than 7,200 airliners have been delivered since its start in early seventies. Airbus is an EADS company.
(Image Credit: Airbus)
Follow Technorati