January 13, 2008 in Nation/World

Airbus says it would build jets in U.S.

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Airbus will play a last-ditch trump card Monday in its bid to beat Boeing for an Air Force refueling tanker contract worth tens of billions of dollars.

Chief Executive Tom Enders plans to announce that if Airbus wins the tanker competition, it also will assemble commercial airplanes in the United States.

Enders and Alabama politicians are to announce the plan in Mobile, where the tankers would be assembled.

The prospect of gaining a U.S. commercial widebody jet plant – comparable only to Boeing’s Everett operation – is sure to galvanize Southern politicians and could shift the political calculus in Congress when it evaluates how the Air Force awards the huge contract as early as next month.

And while Airbus contemplates building only up to 15 tankers and another 30 widebody commercial jets a year at the Alabama plant, that foothold in the U.S. commercial and defense sectors could expand in time.

“Boeing could find it has a cancer growing in the heart of its most important market,” said Loren Thompson, a veteran defense analyst with the Lexington Institute.

The Air Force contract is worth about $40 billion for the initial set of 179 airplanes. Potential follow-on orders to replace the entire Air Force tanker fleet could add up to $100 billion.

The Airbus proposal envisages up to four aircraft a month rolling out of a plant at Brookley Field in Mobile, a person familiar with the plan said.

Airbus parent company EADS has already promised 1,000 direct jobs in Mobile to build the tanker, and the proposed expansion for A330F commercial cargo planes would add 300 more.

Large commercial jets are assembled today at only two locations in the world: Boeing in the Pacific Northwest, and Airbus in Toulouse, France.

The Airbus A330 from EADS and its U.S. partner Northrop Grumman is up against Boeing’s 767 for the Air Force next-generation refueling tanker.

Boeing has repeatedly promoted its bid in nationalistic terms: “America’s tanker” versus a European contender to supply the U.S. military.

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