A partnership between Airbus and Canadian planemaker Bombardier has officially cleared its final hurdles, setting the stage for a second aircraft final assembly line at Airbus’s Mobile campus and hundreds of new manufacturing jobs for the region.
Airbus confirmed the agreement would take effect July 1, ending months of uncertainty over the deal’s fate amid friction between U.S. and Canadian trade officials.
“This is our industrial home,” Mobile plant manager Daryl Taylor told reporters and employees gathered for a media event at the Brookley Aeroplex campus. “It means there will be a new facility.”
The agreement allows Airbus to build Bombardier’s CSeries jetliners alongside its existing A320 family production in Mobile, adding a second final assembly line to the site that opened in 2015. Taylor said the new line is expected to employ roughly 400 workers once it is up and running, mirroring the job count generated when the original Mobile plant opened.
The deal had been held up for months by a trade dispute between Bombardier and Boeing, the American aerospace giant that accused the Canadian manufacturer of dumping subsidized CSeries jets into the U.S. market at unfairly low prices. The U.S. International Trade Commission ultimately sided with Bombardier, rejecting Boeing’s complaint and blocking the U.S. Commerce Department from imposing steep punitive tariffs on the aircraft. Boeing opted not to appeal the ruling earlier this year, clearing the way for the partnership to move forward.
Under revised terms tied to the deal’s early closing, Bombardier will cover any cash shortfalls tied to the CSeries program moving forward, up to $225 million during the second half of 2018, up to $350 million in 2019, and up to a combined $350 million over the two years after that.
A cluster grows at Brookley
Local economic development leaders said the expanded footprint builds on years of momentum for the region’s aerospace sector.
“Additional capacity has always been a goal of our economic development team,” said David Rodgers, vice president of economic development for the Mobile Area Chamber. “Since the initial Airbus [final assembly line] opened in 2015, more than 20 aerospace companies have located to Mobile. We’re looking forward to continuing to see additional investment here as we work to grow our aerospace cluster.”
For Airbus, folding the CSeries into its lineup rounds out its offerings in the single-aisle aircraft market, where the A320 family already competes heavily. “Clearly we see it as a strategic alignment,” Taylor said. “It’s a great addition.”
Bombardier delivered 17 CSeries aircraft in 2017 and expects to more than double that number in 2018 as production ramps up. Airbus and Bombardier project the jet, prized for its fuel efficiency and range, could capture a sizable share of an estimated 6,000 aircraft needed globally in its market segment over the next two decades. Company officials say a dedicated second CSeries line in Mobile is intended to serve that growing demand from U.S.-based airline customers.
“This partnership extends our commitment to Quebec and to all of Canadian aerospace, and we are very glad to welcome so many CSeries teammates into the extended Team Airbus,” Airbus CEO Tom Enders said in a statement announcing the finalized deal. “The strength of the entire Airbus organization will be behind the CSeries. Not only will that enable this outstanding aircraft to fulfill its market potential, but we are convinced the addition of the CSeries to our overall aircraft product offering brings significant value to Airbus, our customers and shareholders.”
The decision to build the jet in Mobile rather than Quebec marked a turning point for both companies — and for the Gulf Coast. By placing a second assembly line at Brookley, Airbus effectively made Mobile its U.S. manufacturing base for both its own narrowbody family and its newest Canadian-designed aircraft, insulating CSeries production from future trade disputes by building the planes inside the American market they are meant to serve.
The CSeries — later folded into Airbus’s product family as the A220 — seats roughly 100 to 150 passengers, putting it at the smaller end of the single-aisle market where airlines fly regional and medium-haul routes. Its fuel-efficient engines and lightweight airframe made it a favorite of carriers looking to cut operating costs, and U.S. airlines were seen as its biggest untapped customer base.
A milestone week for the Mobile plant
The announcement capped a milestone week for the Mobile plant, which also marked its first-ever aircraft delivery to Hawaiian Airlines.
Airbus workers gathered to send off an A321neo, the newest addition to Hawaiian’s fleet, in a ceremony that marked three firsts for the Mobile facility: its first delivery to the Hawaii-based carrier, its first completed “neo,” or new engine option, aircraft, and the first A321 built in Mobile powered by a Pratt & Whitney engine.
Jon Snook, senior vice president and chief operating officer for Hawaiian Airlines, said the neo aircraft have outperformed the airline’s older jets on both range and fuel efficiency. With three neo aircraft already in its fleet, Snook said Hawaiian has been able to add routes along the West Coast, and he welcomed the addition of Mobile-built aircraft to that expansion.
“It’s great that we get to be a part of the industrial future of the city,” he said.
The new jet will join Hawaiian’s fleet under the name Wiliwili, honoring a tree native to the Hawaiian Islands that was historically used to craft the islands’ first surfboards. “All of our aircraft are named for Hawaii’s flora and fauna,” Snook said.
Taylor said the delivery marks the first of many neo aircraft to come out of Mobile, even as the plant continues building the original engine option models. He said demand for the newer, more fuel-efficient variant is expected to keep growing as airlines look to cut emissions and extend range.
The two announcements — a second assembly line and a first Hawaiian delivery — together illustrate how quickly Mobile’s aerospace position has matured. Four years after the first Alabama-built A320 took flight, the plant was producing the newest engine technology in the Airbus fleet, delivering to a carrier across the Pacific, and preparing to take on an entirely different aircraft type on the same campus.
Brookley Aeroplex itself has a long aviation history that predates Airbus by decades. The former Air Force base, where the Army Air Forces trained pilots and overhauled aircraft during World War II, sat largely dormant for years after the military left before the city converted it into an industrial airport and aerospace park. Airbus chose it in 2013 for its first U.S. assembly line, breaking ground on a $600 million facility that opened in 2015 and has since delivered hundreds of aircraft.
The surrounding supplier cluster has grown alongside the plant. More than 20 aerospace companies have located to Mobile since the Airbus line opened, ranging from seat and interior manufacturers to machining and logistics firms, many clustered near the airport or along the I-10 corridor. Each new assembly line deepens that supply base, because aerospace suppliers locate near the customers they feed.
What 400 more jobs mean for Mobile
The expected 400 jobs on the CSeries line mirror the hiring that accompanied the original A320 family line, which now employs thousands of workers across assembly, paint, delivery and support roles. Final assembly work in Mobile pairs a local workforce — many trained through the region’s community college and technical programs — with equipment and processes used at Airbus’s European plants in Toulouse and Hamburg.
Average wages in aerospace manufacturing run well above the regional median, and each direct Airbus job typically supports additional work among suppliers, contractors and services around the airport. For Mobile, the second line effectively doubles down on the strategy that landed the first one: use the city’s port, workforce and Brookley infrastructure to become the place Airbus builds airplanes for the American market.
City and county officials have treated aerospace growth as the anchor of the area’s economic development agenda, alongside the Port of Mobile’s container expansion and the automotive supply industry along I-65. The CSeries agreement added a new layer to that portfolio at exactly the moment the original line proved itself with milestone deliveries like the Hawaiian A321neo.
For traveling passengers, the deal’s effects will show up in airline fleets rather than local headlines. Airlines that buy CSeries-family jets — including several U.S. carriers courted after the Airbus takeover — will fly aircraft whose fuselages were assembled, painted and delivered from the Brookley campus, joining the A320 and A321s already leaving Mobile for carriers across the country.
The plant’s trajectory also illustrates a broader shift in global aerospace manufacturing: final assembly lines are no longer confined to the historic home countries of the big airframers. With Seattle, Toulouse, Hamburg, Montreal and now Mobile all producing narrowbody aircraft, competition among cities for assembly work has become a fixture of economic development — and Mobile, once an outsider, has become one of the established players.
From the first A320 delivery in 2016 to the first neo, the first Hawaiian A321 and now a second production line for an aircraft type Mobile had never touched before, the Brookley campus has added a milestone nearly every year since opening. The CSeries agreement extends that run — and, with it, the argument that Mobile’s aerospace cluster is still early in its growth rather than near its peak.