(MOBILE, Ala.) With word of another company coming to the Port City following the Airbus announcement, dreams of who else will follow are taking flight. Scott Hamilton with the aviation consulting firm Leeham Company says Boeing brought hundreds of companies to the Seattle area.
"Up here in Washington state, there are over 700 companies that have some sort of contract dealing with aerospace. And here in the Puget Sound area, the Seattle-Everett-Renton area, where Boeing of course has it's factories, 400 of those companies are located out of the 700. Obviously, Boeing is producing more than 60 airplanes a month between Everett and Renton. At this stage, you're only talking about four airplanes a month with the capacity of eight a month, so you'd have to proportionately downsize that. But that just gives you the scope of what could happen over the long term," said Hamilton.
Hamilton says a better comparison to Mobile might be Charleston, South Carolina where Boeing has a facility with a current capacity of churning out three 787's a month. He says that project landed a nearby Rolls Royce engine facility in neighboring North Carolina.
"Clearly, Alabama as well as the United States generally is going to benefit from this Airbus footprint here," said Hamilton.
Analyst Weighs in on Airbus Engineering Firm Announcement
