Airbus chief toasts Mobile

MOBILE, Ala. – After days of official silence, Airbus and Alabama dignitaries today (10 a.m. CDT) will confirm what everyone already knows: Mobile is getting a $600 million A320 assembly plant that will make up to 40 aircraft a year by 2017. Late Sunday European business executives and Alabama politicians gathered in the historic Battle House Hotel in Mobile, where Airbus President Fabrice Bregier toasted his hosts, according to the Mobile Press-Register. The project will put Mobile, Alabama and the Gulf Coast region in a select club of locations producing single-aisle commercial jetliners. An airliner plant owned by the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer on to the home turf of its chief rival, Boeing, is expected to change the dynamics of the aerospace industry. (Source: GCAC, Mobile Press-Register, 07/02/12)