Airbus Set to Deliver First US-Made A220 to American Customer Written 15 September 2020

Bloomberg reports that Airbus “is preparing to deliver its first U.S.-made A220 jetliner to Delta Air Lines Inc. as soon as this month, underscoring the European planemaker’s growing presence on The Boeing Company’s home turf.” Airbus’ Mobile, Alabama, site has been used to make A320 for US customers since 2015, but the recent expansion of the site, including “a new assembly line building A220s,” allows Airbus “to avoid U.S.-imposed tariffs for the planes it delivers to American carriers.” Airbus’s “expansion anticipated a ‘new phase in globalization,’ marked by increasingly nationalistic policies and trade restrictions, said aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia.” While Boeing “confines its jet assembly to the” US, Airbus “has extended its industrial footprint into key international markets.” However, “with its facilities spread out in different countries, Airbus wasn’t able to move as quickly as Boeing to pare output and costs after the coronavirus pandemic caused demand for new jetliners to plunge.”
Full Story (Bloomberg)