The first Final Assembly Line that Airbus built in Mobile, Ala., was for the A320 family of aircraft. Now the company plans to expand, likely with a second FAL for the A320 family. Lawrence Specker/LSpecker@AL.com
Airbus has set an aggressive growth plan for production of its A320 aircraft, with expansion in Mobile that apparently will include a whole new Final Assembly Line.
If confirmed, that would mean Airbus would add a third assembly line to the two it currently has at the Brookley Aeroplex on the shore of Mobile Bay: One for the a320 family of single-aisle jets, one for the smaller A220 family. Airbus is also competing for an Air Force tanker contract and has said it’ll build a line for those jets in Mobile if it wins the deal.
Airbus released quarterly earnings on Wednesday. Among the news in that report, Airbus said it was sticking with, and accelerating, plans for the ramp-up in A320 production slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The report said that the company is aiming for a production rate of 65 A320 jetliners per month by summer 2023, and is is now working with its suppliers and partners to enable monthly production rates of 75 in 2025.
“Airbus will meet the higher production rates by increasing capacity at its existing industrial sites and growing the industrial footprint in Mobile, US, while investing to ensure that all commercial aircraft assembly sites are A321-capable,” said the earnings report.
While “growing the industrial footprint” is not very specific, some media outlets have reported that Airbus CEO Guillame Faury was more detailed as he answered questions after the release of the report. The Financial Times and U.S. News & World Report said that Faury told reporters a new Final Assembly Line for Mobile was part of the plan.
An Airbus spokesman confirmed to AL.com that Faury had made statements to that effect.
Airbus notified media on Wednesday that it plans an “economic investment and workforce announcement” for Monday in Mobile. That announcement will follow up on “today’s news that Mobile will play a key role in Airbus’ plans to significantly increase global production rates in coming years,” the company said.
Mobile Airport Authority President Chris Curry said he could add nothing to the information released in the earnings report.
Industry analysts have contrasted Airbus’s growth plan to Boeing, which is taking a much slower approach to ramping up production of its 737 Max jetliner. Demand for that model was affected not only by the pandemic but by a problem that caused two crashes and required corrective work. Production for the 737 Max remains in the low 30s per month, according to most industry reports.
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