Loading ...Airbus Guns for Boeing With New Factory in Its Home Market
Airbus Group NV Chief Executive Officer Fabrice Bregier is laying plans to overtake Boeing Co. in the U.S., the largest aerospace market, starting with a new factory in Alabama.
It’s an aggressive move, considering that the French-based planemaker only controls about 20 percent of the U.S. market. That share will reach 40 percent once carriers like American Airlines take delivery of the company’s planes on order. Bregier’s team has 50 percent share in its sight in a market that has traditionally tilted toward Boeing.
Airbus will raise its profile, and lower costs, with a $600 million plant for single-aisle airplanes to be unveiled Monday in the city of Mobile. The facility is only the second such plant it has built outside of Europe.
“Our first U.S. facility has been years in the making,” Bregier told
reporters Sunday. “It is the most significant, game-changing incident in U.S. aerospace in years.”