EADS seeks north America scale

Some time in 2016, at a former US airforce supply centre on the edge of Mobile, Alabama, the first of many A320 aircraft will emerge from a new production facility being constructed by Airbus, the commercial aerospace arm of EADS.

The start of production at the facility will mark the culmination of the latest of several attempts by the European company to establish a large-scale, long-term industrial presence in the US.

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The plant had originally been planned as the manufacturing plant for airborne tankers to be built under Airbus's joint bid with the US's Northrop Grumman to build tankers for the US Air Force - a contract that the pair lost in 2008 after protests from Boeing, their rival.

"It was part of the strategy of Airbus always to have an industrial presence in the US at some point," says Allan McArtor, chairman of Airbus Americas.

The heart of EADS's current US defence operations - which operate, like BAE Systems' north American operations, under a Special Security Agreement with the Pentagon - are helicopter manufacturing plants in Mississippi and Texas. The US Army, the largest single customer, operates the company's UH-72A helicopter as a light utility helicopter, ferrying soldiers and equipment around war zones. US customs, border security and other government agencies operate other versions of the helicopter.

The Mobile site, as well as housing an Airbus design centre, also offers servicing for C212 and CN235 fixed-wing turboprop transport aircraft used by the US Coast Guard, other wings of the US government and commercial operators.

Until the Mobile factory's completion, however, EADS is destined to remain a far more modest presence in the US than BAE Systems, with which it is seeking to merge. Only USD 1.2 billion of the group's USD 49.1 billion 2011 revenue came from its operations in north America.