Airbus formally opened its first U.S. manufacturing plant at Brookley Aeroplex in Mobile on Monday, marking the end of a years-long effort to bring the European aerospace giant to the Alabama Gulf Coast and the beginning of full-scale aircraft production in the region.
The final assembly line, built to produce Airbus’ A320 family of narrow-body jets, is now the company’s only commercial aircraft manufacturing site on U.S. soil. The A320 family is among the most widely flown aircraft in the world, used for short- and medium-range routes and capable of carrying up to 220 passengers. Major components will arrive in Mobile from suppliers around the globe, where employees at Brookley will assemble them into finished jets. The first planes built at the facility are expected to make their maiden flights directly from the Mobile site.
More than 260 employees currently work at the plant, and many of them took part in Monday’s inauguration ceremony. Company officials said the workforce will keep growing as additional new hires complete training at Airbus’ operations in Hamburg, Germany. Jennifer Ogle, the facility’s head of human resources, said the company is in a “continuous ramp-up phase” and that the plant is ultimately expected to support as many as 1,000 direct jobs, with the potential for several times that number among suppliers and contractors.
Ogle said 89 percent of the employees hired so far are from the local region, a reflection, she said, of the deep pool of skilled workers along the Gulf Coast. She credited Mobile’s existing infrastructure and talent base with helping convince Airbus to locate its first American plant here, even though many new hires have little or no prior background in aviation manufacturing.
For some of those new employees, the jobs have been a turning point. Jocelyn Wright, a Mobile native, said she was hired about two months ago as the assembly line’s mail clerk after a layoff and a stretch of temporary work left her searching for something more stable to help support her two daughters.
“It felt really good,” Wright said of landing the position. “It’s good to find a good, stable and long-term job.” She said the months leading up to being hired had been difficult ones for her family, and described Monday’s ceremony as an exciting milestone. “Everything is brand new,” she said.
Gov. Robert Bentley, Sen. Jeff Sessions and Rep. Bradley Byrne each spoke at the ceremony, praising the skill and work ethic of the region’s labor force and framing the plant’s opening as a turning point for the local economy. Sessions reflected on the state’s earlier, unsuccessful bid to win a U.S. Air Force refueling tanker contract that would have brought a similar Airbus facility to Mobile years sooner, before the work eventually went to rival Boeing.
“We went through the disappointment with the tankers,” Sessions said. “The result of that resolve was this facility.”
The plant’s construction has already drawn a wave of related investment to the Mobile area, and officials expect more suppliers to follow as production ramps up. In June, Hutchinson Aerospace announced plans to build a facility near the Airbus plant to manufacture noise-reduction insulation systems for jet engines. Mobile’s Industrial Development Board approved an incentive package for the company just days before that announcement was made at the Paris Air Show, including more than $250,000 in sales and use tax abatements and a 10-year ad valorem tax abatement. In exchange, Hutchinson pledged to create about 100 jobs and construct a 20,000-square-foot facility, with plans for a five-year expansion.
Other companies have followed suit. MAAS Aviation recently announced it would open a paint shop at the Aeroplex, and Tescal Group, a maker of calibration and asset-optimization services, said it would lease space nearby to partner with Airbus.
Airbus spokeswoman Kristi Tucker said the company anticipates continued growth around the Mobile site. “We fully expect more to follow,” Tucker said. “It’s just a trend.”
Bob Smith, aerospace program manager for the Alabama Department of Commerce, agreed, adding that the introduction of a “new engine option” version of the A320 in 2018 could draw even more specialized suppliers to the area.
While assembly work has already begun at the plant, the first completed jets are not expected to roll out until early next year. Airbus has said it hopes to eventually build four aircraft per month at the facility, with output increasing over time.
Monday’s ceremony drew international media attention to Mobile, with guests from across the city, state, country and world on hand to see the long-anticipated facility for the first time. Airbus has maintained a smaller engineering presence at Brookley Aeroplex since 2006, employing roughly 100 people, but the new assembly line represents by far the company’s largest investment in the region to date.