About the Mobile Chamber
The Mobile Chamber is a private business organization with more than 1,700 members and the economic developer for the City of Mobile and Mobile County. The Mobile Chamber’s focus is to provide members with networking, marketing and professional development opportunities, expand jobs in the area, develop the local workforce, advocate legislative priorities and offer resources to help small businesses grow. Additional information is on the Chamber’s website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
Airbus Announces New Assembly Line and 1,000 New Jobs
Business View – August 2022/ Business News
The Airbus announcement was made at Bishop State Community College alongside the latest class of FlightPath9, an ongoing recruiting effort to train and educate local students with the skills needed to work in the Airbus manufacturing facility.
Airbus announced a third final assembly line will be built at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley, as the airplane manufacturer ramps up production in Mobile to 20 planes per month. The new A320 final assembly line (FAL) will create 1,000 new jobs.
“The fact that Mobile will lead our unprecedented global production rate increase in the coming years is a tribute to the world-class labor force in Alabama,” said C. Jeffrey Knittel, chairman and CEO of Airbus Americas. “I’m so proud of our Mobile employees for proving through years of hard work what Alabama is capable of, and I’m also immensely grateful to state leadership for making Alabama such a great place to invest and do business.”
Airbus will break ground on the 350,000-square-foot facility in the first half of 2023, with planes slated to roll off the new final assembly line in the second quarter of 2025. The expansion will also include a new paint shop and major modifications to its existing hangar.
“It’s wonderful to see Airbus continue to grow its only U.S. airliner manufacturing operation with another expansion in Mobile,” said Gov. Kay Ivey. “This growth is made possible by the company’s skilled workforce in Alabama and our commitment to developing a pipeline of future aerospace workers.”
Airbus produced the first Alabama-built A320 aircraft in 2015, and it launched production of the A220 single-aisle passenger jet in Mobile in 2019, with a new assembly line specifically for the A220 opening the next year.
Airbus has invested more than $1 billion in its Alabama manufacturing facility. Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce, said the state’s aerospace/aviation industry is primed for growth.
“Aerospace industry growth continues to be a high-value opportunity for Alabama, not only in terms of capital investment but also in job creation,” he said. “There are a lot of exciting things going in aerospace and aviation in the state, and we’re seeing that today with the expansion at Airbus.”
“Mobile is quickly becoming a global epicenter for the aerospace industry, and the addition of a third final assembly line in Mobile is a testament to our area’s workforce,” said David Rodgers, vice president of economic development at the Mobile Chamber.
Click here to read the Business View – August 2022
Additional information is on the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce’s website at mobilechamber.com, on Facebook at @MobileChamber, Instagram at @mobile-area-chamber and Twitter at @MobileChamber.
