Airbus Marks Five Years of Building Jets in Mobile, Expands A220 Line Despite Pandemic

Airbus quietly marked a major milestone at its Brookley Aeroplex campus last week, celebrating five years since the aerospace giant began building commercial jetliners in Mobile even as the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the celebration and the industry around it. The company’s final assembly line in Mobile opened on Sept. 14, 2015, and has since grown into a cornerstone of the region’s manufacturing economy. Daryl Taylor, general manager of Airbus’ U.S. manufacturing operations, recalled standing in front of roughly 250 employees and a crowd of community leaders on opening day five years ago. This time around, he addressed a smaller, masked group of local reporters rather than a large public gathering, a shift he said reflected just how different 2020 has turned out to be.

“It’s a very different year for us all,” Taylor said. “2020 wasn’t really going to look like this. We have many opportunities to celebrate.” Even with the anniversary tempered by the pandemic, Airbus used the occasion to highlight continued investment in Mobile. Alongside the five-year milestone for its original line building A320 family aircraft, the company recently opened a second facility on the same campus dedicated to producing the smaller A220 jet.

“I take pride in the employees who have achieved every milestone, every commitment,” Taylor told reporters. “Not even COVID has slowed us down. To me, that is the real pride I have.” Airbus also unveiled an expanded delivery center on its Mobile campus, named in honor of former Airbus CEO Tom Enders. The facility gives airline customers dedicated office space to use while completing the pickup of newly built aircraft, a process that typically takes about four days from start to finish, according to Airbus spokesperson Kristi Tucker.

Several offices inside the new center currently sit empty, reflecting production levels that have not yet returned to pre-pandemic capacity. At full output, the Mobile assembly line is designed to produce and deliver eight aircraft per month, and Tucker said the A320 line was on pace to reach that figure before the pandemic disrupted global air travel.

Airbus has managed to avoid layoffs among its permanent Mobile workforce so far, Taylor said, even as airlines worldwide have slashed orders and deliveries amid collapsing travel demand. He noted that the aerospace industry has weathered downturns before, including after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the SARS outbreak, but said the current crisis appears likely to leave a longer mark. “2020 will be the first real significant step down for aerospace in decades,” Taylor said.

“With 9/11, with SARS and with the banks in 2009, those were one-year blips; we recognize that isn’t the case with COVID.” Still, Taylor expressed confidence that Airbus’ smaller, single-aisle jets, the A320 and A220, are well positioned to help the company recover faster than manufacturers focused on larger, long-haul aircraft. He pointed to domestic air travel, which is expected to rebound more quickly than international routes, as a key advantage for the single-aisle models built in Mobile.

“It could come back before the whole industry returns,” he said. “International travel will be hardest hit.” During Friday’s event, reporters also toured the newer A220 manufacturing facility, which like the A320 line produces a single-aisle jet expected to hold up better than larger wide-body aircraft as the industry claws back from the pandemic.

Over its first five years, Airbus has hired more than 1,000 employees across its two Mobile manufacturing sites, representing 29 nationalities. Roughly 90 percent of those workers live in Mobile or Baldwin counties, with additional employees commuting from elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, Taylor said.

Since opening, the Mobile-built fleet has completed more than 400,000 flights, carrying an estimated 60 million passengers a combined 500 million miles. Together, Airbus’ two Mobile assembly lines and an adjacent engineering center at Brookley Aeroplex represent roughly $1 billion in direct investment, generating an estimated $1.1 billion in total economic impact, according to figures compiled by the University of South Alabama’s Center for Real Estate and Economic Development.

“When we announced our intent to build A320 family aircraft in the United States and to locate that facility in Mobile, Alabama, we also stated our intent to be a good neighbor, to create jobs and opportunities, and to help strengthen the U.S. aerospace industry,” Airbus Americas President and CEO C. Jeffrey Knittel said in a statement. “Five years later, we have become a major economic driver in creating an aerospace hub on the Gulf Coast.” Paul Gaskell, who heads the A220 program in Mobile, said the second line started building jets in August 2019 and has reached the point of readiness for its first customer deliveries, with two of the smaller aircraft set to go out and more on the way.

The A220 side of the plant, like the rest of the industry, has felt the pandemic’s reach — Airbus shut down Mobile production for about three weeks in April as the virus swept through airline networks in Hamburg, Toulouse, Tianjin and beyond. Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson marked the milestone by noting how far the city has climbed in world aviation: “If your city isn’t named Toulouse, Hamburg or Seattle — it’s Mobile.” By August, the plant had produced more than 180 A320 family aircraft for airlines including JetBlue, Delta and American.

How the Mobile Lines Came About

Airbus announced its plan to build A320-family jets in Mobile in July 2012, and the first Mobile-built aircraft, an A321, was delivered to JetBlue in April 2016. The A220 was designed and originally sold by Bombardier as the C Series; Airbus took a majority stake in the program in July 2018 and renamed the aircraft, and a second final assembly line in Mobile, alongside the main A220 line in Mirabel, Quebec, was part of that plan.

Both lines sit at the Brookley Aeroplex, the site of the former Brookley Air Force Base, whose closure in the 1960s was one of the biggest economic blows in Mobile’s modern history.

Related coverage from South AL News

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• Airbus to Take Majority Ownership of A220 Program as Bombardier Exits Partnership
• Airbus Completes Second Mobile Assembly Line for A220 Jets, Adds JetBlue as Customer
• Airbus Resumes Commercial Jet Production at Mobile Plant After COVID-19 Pause