Almost everything seems to have gone right since the opening of the plant.
The A320 family jet is the airline industry's "it plane." Boeing has been overwhelmed by a number of bad decisions. The effort to impose tariffs on Canadian-made aircraft was one of them. The Mobile plant didn't lay off anyone during the Pandemic and now aircraft are in short supply.
The addition of a second assembly line for the A320 family of aircraft will be enabled by the addition of 1000 jobs in Mobile. Since May, a few hundred jobs have been added, bringing the current employment to about 1,500.
The vice president and general manager of the Mobile plant said that it was good for a place that wasn't building airplanes seven years ago. Most of the employees are local hires. The company has invested a billion dollars in Mobile.
There was another Mobile achievement last week. The 100th aircraft was delivered to Delta Air Lines. There was a new option for the plane, the A321neo. U.S. airlines usually say they are upgauging, which means they are replacing smaller narrow-bodies with larger A321s.
Delta says it will fly the A321neo with more than 200 passengers in three classes, but Frontier says it will fly the A321neo with less than 200 passengers in three classes. The A321neos are used by Delta for transcontinental flying.
88 of the 100 aircraft delivered to Delta have been A320s.
Atlanta is where Delta is located. They like the fact that they can come to Mobile and pick up both types of aircraft.
Taylor said that one day, all of the narrow-body deliveries to the U.S. will be from Mobile.
You can sign up for our newsletter.
There's more on Delta and its planes.
The CEO of American Airlines said on CNBC last week that Boeing and Airbus have been good partners. They need to be good. We definitely do. We rely on them for our income.
He said that they have to be on time when delivering aircraft. To build an enterprise that services what you committed to, you need to build it. They want to do it. They need to catch up just like we did on the Pandemic.
About 300 from the A320 family have been delivered by Mobile. There will be 75 A320 family aircraft and 14 A 220 family aircraft produced by the year 2025. Similar ratios are expected in Mobile.
The first aircraft delivered by Mobile was an A321 to JetBlue. American, Allegiant, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian and JetBlue are just some of the airlines that have customers. Delta received the first delivery of the A 220.
The future could include a military tanker that would be built in partnership with Lockheed Martin. The two companies have said that if the Air Force chooses the aircraft over one proposed by Boeing, they would assemble it in Mobile, Alabama, and fly it to a facility in Georgia.
There was a pause in growth in the spring of 2020. There were no months when the plant didn't produce aircraft. The company did not lay off any permanent workers during the slow months. All customers resumed deliveries by the end of 2020.
Scott Hamilton, managing director of airline consultant Leeham Partners, said that the creation of the Mobile final assembly line would create jobs. This is good news for the U.S.
Alaska, Southwest and United airlines remain entirely or predominantly Boeing customers, and Delta said in July that it will add 100 Boeing MAX aircraft to its fleet, with options for 30 more.
Hamilton said that Boeing triggered Mobile's entry into the A 220 business.
The creation of an A 220 final assembly line in Mobile and Delta's pledge to take delivery of the A 220 from Mobile were spurred by the Boeing trade complaint against Bombardier. Boeing underestimated the effect of its trade complaint. It is competing in the 150 seat sector against a strong Airbus.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
