Back to Squawk list
  • 25

Airbus Said to Plan First U.S. Plant

Submitted
 
PARIS — Airbus, the European plane maker, plans to build its first assembly line in the United States in Mobile, Ala., in an aggressive foray into the world’s largest market for single-aisle airplanes, people with knowledge of the plan said on Wednesday. The plan involves an investment of several hundred million dollars in a plant on Boeing’s home turf that could eventually assemble dozens of Airbus’s popular 150-seat A320 jets each year. Details were expected to be announced as early as Monday,… (www.nytimes.com) More...

Sort type: [Top] [Newest]


esacontact
Dave Eskelson 2
After Airbus denied plans, Boeing has responded with a counterattack - There sure is a lot of smoke everyone should look for some fire.
davysims
David Sims 2
Airbus has been talking about Mobile, Alabama for almost a decade now. First it was to be the plant for the USAF tanker, which they didn't get.
eurobello
Marlin Tafaj 1
You mean, was taken away from them...
preacher1
preacher1 1
Well, rightfully so, the government stepped in and pulled rank, giving Boeing the Tanker contract; then Boeing screwed Wichita by moving the production elswhere so they have this coming. You reap what you sow. Hindsight being 20-20, Airbus was offering a better product to the USAF. Just sayin'.
mduell
Mark Duell 4
Airbus offered a more capable product the USG didn't need; if they were after capability Boeing would have offered 777KC instead of 767KC. The USG made it clear the competition was on price and price alone after the minimum requirements were satisfied, and Boeing won on price.
preacher1
preacher1 1
You are correct but Boeing still screwed Wichita and that can't be denied!!
JJ7
JJ Johnson 3
Jobs are jobs and these are good jobs. Now if we can just get Wal-Mrt to stop selling cheap Chinese crap maybe the AMERICAN job market will expand.
preacher1
preacher1 1
They are just like Home Depot & Lowes. All of them have import centers set up on the West Coast to strip containers and transload to their various DC's. Wal Mart started theirs back in the early 80's. The others have just followed suit in the last 10 years or so; that said, you are correct, but it is pitiful that a U.S. mfg can't compete against an entity 10,000 miles away, that has to pay cost of mfg. and ship all that way, and it is still cheaper. Something wrong with that picture somewhere. Just sayin'
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Wal-Mart is no different, just bigger. The government also has done a lousy job policing the balance of trade. I don't have a total import phobia, but I do think anyone exporting to the US needs to import a like amount from the US. That is a true trade partnership, not a one way street. So once again a lot of the blame falls on the DC crowd. Corporations are going to do whatever makes them the most money, period.
preacher1
preacher1 1
Balance, or close to it, would be nice.

BTW. baby is OK. Heart is OK and and breathing stabilized. Starting on bottle and away from the feed tube. Hopefully home in a day or 2. Tks for the prayers. Wayne
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Great news!

Do do anything weird in LA. LOL
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Don't

preacher1
preacher1 1
Not planning on it. As late as we'll get in, I'll probably sleep late. I don't think we are leaving KFSN until about 6(4PDT) and I think it's about 4 hours, maybe a little less. Old man will probably be ready for a nap.LOL
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
It is the government that lets the stuff in the country and the jobs out of the country. Why? Because that's what the lobbyists paid for.
onceastudentpilot
tim mitchell 0
Walmart sells what the public wants "low prices"....We stock our shelves with only American made products but we would have to pass it on to you...I am not saying that you are the only person that wants American made products but the vast majority wants what is affordable.
Airway61
Jose Lauzardo 1
Very good," We can really use the jobs!!!"It's a step in the right direction!!!!
tyketto
Since I added my comment to the other squawk, I'll paste it here as well.

And wasn't this to be the same exact place that Airbus/EADS was going to partner with Lockheed/Martin at to build the aircrafts for the KC-X competition? You know, the same place that people refused to allow to happen because it wasn't Boeing, which lead to the bad deal and subsequent investigation causing the KC-X competition to be restarted?

How funny that this receives praise, but a big contract that this place would be utilized for gets shunned..
bizarrebananablast
Conor Ball 1
I don't know anymore, getting some stiff competition between Boeing and Airbus. Not counting the other manufactures.
jlemon
Jeff Lemon 1
Interesting to note that EADS has operated an Airbus mod center at Chennault (CWF) in Lake Charles, LA for a number of years now....

And I'm sure that Gov. Jindal over in Baton Rouge is wondering why this pre-existing EADS facility wasn't tapped for the possible new A320 assembly work....
preacher1
preacher1 2
Well, according to the article, they also have an engineering center in Mobile but I imagine one of the biggest reasons is the port. Lake Charles doesn't have the Deep Water Gulf access, plus I am sure Airbus has port familiarity, having that Helicopter facility up in Columbus MS.
sparkie624
sparkie624 -1
LOL, I can see them bringing fuselages over the ocean now... LOL, good for American jobs but still foreign crap... I stand by the phrase, "If It Ain't Boeing, I Ain't going"
charpini
patrick legein 1
that's why we 're getting isolated from the rest of the world because of this rappy attitude, go ahaed time will tell
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Isolated? Then why do I see some rude foreigner every time I turn around?
mattnyc
Matt Molnar 0
(Duplicate Squawk Submitted)

Airbus to Build A320 Factory in Alabama

Airbus would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build their first manufacturing facility in the United States.

http://www.nycaviation.com/2012/06/airbus-build-a320-factory-alabama/
Moviela
Ric Wernicke -1
The Civil War ended slavery, but the South is very much populated with plantations today. They are not agracultural, rather industrial addembly plants. The move by Airbus to Alabama is for a single purpose. It is to allow them to rivet an aluminum tag that says "Made in USA." The workers will be low paid, few benifits with virtually no chance of advancement. They admit that every American worker will have 10 jobs in Europe supporting them. These will be the highly compensated engineers, machinists, and major sub-assembly workers that will send the grunt work overseas.

What no one want to say about the aerial tanker contract is that it makes no sense to allow equipment necessary for the military's mission to be made in another country, especially one in the memory of people living today that was captive of an enemy state. For those of you from Rio Linda, CA that was when France was occupied by Germany in WWII.

Price was meerly pretext to assure manufacture of this important aircraft was made "in house."
preacher1
preacher1 3
The plants populating Alabama and the South today are NOT paying starvation wages and are well above the plantation stage as far as job quality goes. I am in a county in Arkansas where an earlier landowner worked to keep industry out, afraid he couln't get labor for his farmland. That is Plantation style. The whole COUNTY only has 4 plants; 2 of those are chicken plants and 1 lumber mill so they are tied to agriculture. We would love to have some of those assembly plants mentioned. The US should have done something like the Europeans are talking about, tax companies moving overseas as they took the good jobs with them. And yes, price or not, legal or not, Boeing screwed Wichita and their congressional delegation.
THRUSTT
THRUSTT 1
Preach on Preacherman!!!
preacher1
preacher1 1
Dang if I ain't gonna have to work some this weekend though. It'll probably be too hot to do anything else anyway, and I need the hours. My old bunch wants to leave tomorrow nite for an early Saturday morning meeting in LA and left seat that replaced me is on vacation. Based on what I know right now, we are going into LAX, we'll all RON close by the Airport, they are going to meet and hopefully we'll be on the way home before lunch. That's the plan anyway.LOL
THRUSTT
THRUSTT 1
Check out the LAX parking lot pilots while you're there...
preacher1
preacher1 1
Yeah, seems I remember all that poor mouthin'. I should have some time Saturday morning to kinda do that, if my bunch don't get in a big hurry. I have woke up on these weekend deals before and instead of having 4-5 hours to play with, they get in a hurry to come home. Of course, it has gone the other way. It has taken all weekend. You know how that crap goes.
preacher1
preacher1 1
I can't remember all that mess exactly and it's been a long time since I been to LAX, but isn't that parking lot deal at the main entrance, and ain't that across the field from the FBO's and all the private stuff?
preacher1
preacher1 1
I got so aggravated this afternoon. All dresssed up and no place to go.Both engines up, 200 yards from the runway and #1 in line and no inbound to wait on. It was gonna be beautiful, just swing the corner and shove the coal to it. Email from the office to us...Meeting cancelled. Rescheduled til next week. Boss man said take her back in and park it and let's go to the house. Dude will be back off vacation Monday so if they go, he'll fly it. Dang, I'm gonna get rusty.LOL
Wingscrubber
Wingscrubber 1
The southern states are starting to modernize and are offering big incentives to aerospace companies to move there, with the knock-on effect of attracting high value knowledge workers, and providing a fringe benefit of local manufacturing jobs.
preacher1
preacher1 1
All you really got to do is look at Interstate 40, the States that it runs thru and South, and see what/who is there. These aren't factories just coming down from the North on a flatbed truck
preacher1
preacher1 1
talk to the boys in Charleston about their wages at the Boeing Plant or the boys at Gulfstream in Savannah. I don't think you could call those plantation style Operations and low pay.
Moviela
Ric Wernicke 1
I do talk to the boys at those places and the total compensation is down 40% from what other plants are making. Not only are the cash wages lower, but health benifits are miserly, and the pension contribution from the employer is almost nil. Rather than a defined benifit, most are shoveled into a 401K plan where basically the worker contributes most of the funds, and takes all of the risk. Daimler built a manufacturing plant there because total compensation per employee is about $40 hr, while at existing plants with union work forces the total compensation was $71 hr. I don't care if you grow cotton or make wing spar assemblies it is still a plantation. Sure you can quit, but then where do you work? There are not a lot of similar jobs in the same geographic area.
preacher1
preacher1 2
No need of gettin' into a North/South or Union/Non Union argument as we both know where it lies. The Daimler comparison is a good one. Just as folks from the North don't want to come South, so it goes in reverse. Very few of these guys would move North to take advantage of that $70 per hour. Yes they can quit, and as far as where they would work, probably one of those plantation jobs that was there before Daimler came to town paying more than anything in the area, although less than what they paid up North. It happens everywhere, not just in the South. Fair amount of places up North where companies have come into a small community that had nothing and were welcomed with open arms.
AlecThigpen
AlecThigpen 1
Ric, you obviously don't know a lot about the south. $40 an hour is $80,000 a year without overtime, is a great salary, and will buy a very nice house in just a few years and support a family on one income. It is over twice the median income, but our cost of living is half what it is in most other parts of the country. Our aviation industries are among the best anywhere, with several large aircraft repair and overhaul facilities in the immediate area. We have an aviation training college here that's continually turning out A&Ps to do the work. We have two large steel mills here, several major shipbuilding companies, and transportation options that few areas can match. The plantation card just doesn't cut it anymore. Even the Europeans don't buy that anymore. We can be competitive because our costs are lower, we have more good days to work, and we have a very strong work ethic.
United869
Justin Wong -5
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Login

Don't have an account? Register now (free) for customized features, flight alerts, and more!
Did you know that FlightAware flight tracking is supported by advertising?
You can help us keep FlightAware free by allowing ads from FlightAware.com. We work hard to keep our advertising relevant and unobtrusive to create a great experience. It's quick and easy to whitelist ads on FlightAware or please consider our premium accounts.
Dismiss