Airbus is opening its first manufacturing facility in the United States, the company announced this week.
The facility, located at the Brookley Aeroplex in Mobile, Alabama will assemble and deliver A320 Family aircraft, including the A319, A320 and A321 aircraft.
The company said construction of the assembly line will begin in summer 2013, and aircraft assembly is planned to start in 2015. The first deliveries from the facility are slated to start in 2016; Airbus anticipates the facility will produce between 40 and 50 aircraft per year by 2018.
“The time is right for Airbus to expand in America,” Fabrice Bregier, Airbus President & CEO, said in a news release. “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 decision is great news for our industry partnerships in the U.S., and it supports Airbus’ strategy on several fronts,” Bregier added. “This facility creates new manufacturing jobs and further enhances the partnership between Airbus, its suppliers and their employees – a very large percentage of which are located here in the United States. We and the supplier partners with whom we work will be establishing a new aerospace center of competency in a region that has endured great difficulty in recent years.”