Airbus expects A321s to heavily dominate aircraft production on its new A320-family assembly line (FAL) in the U.S., according to Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier. Speaking with AIN at a press conference on the evening of September 13, hours before Airbus was due to commence a ceremony inaugurating its new Mobile FAL in Alabama, Brégier confirmed the manufacturer expects A321s to constitute well over 50 percent of its entire Mobile A320-family production.
Barry Eccleston, president and CEO of Airbus Americas, said that despite its maturity, the U.S. air transport market will grow by 2.4 percent a year on average throughout the next two decades, and all but 0.5 percent of the annual growth will be organic. He said the growth would mainly come on existing routes, meaning that U.S. airlines will require larger single-aisle aircraft, such as A321s. Airbus’s orderbook for the Mobile line already reflects that assertion, according to Eccleston, who revealed that upon ordering A320-family jets one unidentified U.S. customer had immediately told Airbus it wanted the aircraft to come from the Mobile line.
Clay McConnell, head of communications for Airbus Group, Inc., the manufacturer’s U.S. holding company, told AIN that, in fact, A321s would account for 49 out of the first 50 A320-family jets delivered from the Mobile FAL. Since Airbus does not expect to reach its planned “Rate Four”—four aircraft a month, or about 50 deliveries a year—until the end of 2017, that means that A321s or A321neos will account for almost every aircraft delivered from Mobile until well into 2018. The Europe-based airframer expects to transition to A320neo-family production at Mobile at the end of 2017 or at the beginning of 2018, said Timo Zaremba, head of product quality for Airbus Mobile. Zaremba noted that when Airbus first decided in July 2012 to open a new A320 FAL in Mobile, the manufacturer expected most of its production would involve A320s.
However, the first two aircraft on the new line are A321s, the first destined for JetBlue Airways—the A321’s vertical stabilizer wearing the carrier’s distinct ‘Mint’ tail paint scheme to denote that JetBlue will dedicate the machine to its premium-service offering—and the second destined for American Airlines.
Airbus expects the first Mobile-assembled A321 to perform its maiden flight in the first quarter of 2016. Schedules call for delivery of both the first JetBlue A321 and first American A321 from the new line in the second quarter.
The Mobile FAL is located at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley, a former air force base that closed in the 1960s, causing extensive harm to the Alabama city’s economy at the time. For Airbus, which has spent $600 million so far on its new Mobile facility, the Brookley site carries two massive advantages: its 9,618-foot runway and the fact that the airfield lies next to Mobile Bay and only four miles from a large seaport, where ships can unload large aircraft assemblies that can travel by road to Brookley within minutes.
Airbus now has a 116-acre site at Brookley but it can expand to another 116-acre plot of land on the airfield if it wishes. The airframer already is looking at potentially increasing production at its Mobile FAL to eight aircraft a month.
Such expansion would require only a “modest capex” investment, according to Allan McArtor, chairman and CEO of Airbus Group, Inc.