Airbus Mobile

The Mobile plant is a final assembly line for the Airbus A320 family of narrow body aircraft. Aircraft assembled in Mobile are destined for North American airlines such as Air Canada, JetBlue, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and Frontier Airlines. On June 21, 2015, the main fuselage components for the first aircraft built in Mobile arrived at the plant. The first aircraft, an A321, was delivered to JetBlue on April 25, 2016.[9]

Delta Air Lines A321 at the Mobile Plant

All main fuselage parts are shipped by sea across the Atlantic from Hamburg, Germany. As scheduled, in December 2017 the assembly site produced the 50th aircraft and reached an output capacity of four planes per month.[10]

In October 2017, Airbus announced it would acquire a majority stake in the Canadian Bombardier CSeries programme.[11] With the agreement, the CSeries Aircraft Limited Partnership will be divided as Airbus at 50.01%, Bombardier Aerospace at 31%, and Investissement Québec at 19%.[12] While manufacturing of the CSeries will continue at Bombardier's facilities in the province of Quebec, steep tariffs had tentatively been imposed on the Canadian-made planes being purchased by U.S. airlines. The plan to set up a second assembly line for the CSeries at the Airbus Mobile factory would mean that these aircraft would be domestically produced in the U.S. and avoid the possible tariffs.[13][14][15] The United States International Trade Commission ruled three months later that the Canadian-made planes did not threaten the U.S. airplane industry and no duty orders would be issued.[16] Construction of the A220 final assembly line (FAL) in Mobile is underway, with initial deliveries to U.S. customers from the existing FAL in Mirabel, Québec, shifting to units from the Mobile FAL once it is operational in 2020.[17] Production of the A220 started in August 2019; the first aircraft from the new line, an A220-300, is to be delivered to Delta in the third quarter of 2020.[18]