European jet maker Airbus is having a stellar sales year, bouncing back from A380 production troubles in 2006.
But the weakness of the U.S. dollar has forced Airbus’s parent company, EADS, to consider opening manufacturing sites across the pond in the United States (as well as in Russia).
“We don’t have a choice,” said Louis Gallois, chief executive at the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, during an interview over the weekend.
Airbus sells its planes in dollars but pays its unions euros. The euro has been on the rise – meaning Airbus has to pay its workers more while receiving less from its customers.
Gallois said that Airbus could move the production of aircraft doors, fuselage and wing components out of Europe over the next decade.
And just where in the United States will Airbus set up shop? Mobile, Alabama, home of the KC-30 tanker, according to a German publication.
Mobile may have lost its bid to be the final assembly site of Boeing’s 787, but the city (and region) could win big if EADS and its partner, Northrop-Grumman, are awarded a multi-billion dollar deal with the U.S. Air Force. Boeing has put forth its KC-767, which would be assembled here in Everett with Wichita lending a hand.
Moving more production to Alabama could be a win-win for the European company, an Airbus official told the German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche.
“We could not only equip these aircraft but also build them,” the official said. “If we are producing there, it will be harder to exclude us from tendering procedures on the grounds that we are a European company.”
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