A massive expansion of Airbus’ manufacturing facility in Mobile remains on track to create 1,000 new jobs, with jetliners coming off a new assembly line and hitting the sky starting in 2025, company officials said at a Wednesday celebration of progress on the project.

The view of the Airbus campus from the pavilion set up for Wednesday’s gathering oversaw a giant construction site. Between the bare dirt, the mounds of materials and the steady stream of dump trucks rumbling past, it was clear that the occasion was neither a groundbreaking nor a ribbon cutting. Instead, the “expansion ceremony” was a chance for elected officials from the state, city and two counties to wax enthusiastic about the teamwork that had facilitated Airbus’ development so far. For Airbus executives, it was a chance to praise the welcoming environment and to reaffirm an aggressive growth plan.

Daryl Taylor, vice-president of commercial operations with Airbus USA, said the timing of the event wasn’t tied to any one key development, but just felt right.

“We announced our expansion in May 2022, and we just felt today and this week was the right time,” he said. “We had the series of milestones including really breaking ground on our new final assembly line which is the corner piece of the expansion. It just felt like the right time as we put the big pieces in the ground.”

The most substantive language came from Gerd Weber, whose title at Airbus is head of A320 value stream management and final assembly lines. Airbus has been delivering A320-family jets produced on a Final Assembly Line (FAL) in Mobile since 2017. It’s one of four sites where the single-aisle jets are built, alongside FALs in France, Germany and China.

“The A320-family program is the major source of income for Airbus,” said Weber, underscoring the stakes. The family, which includes the popular A31neo and other variants, comprises 84% of the company’s commercial order book, with more than 6,000 jets on order.

Airbus has said it wants to be delivering 75 of the jetliners per month by 2025 or 2026, in combined output from Mobile and three other sites. That’s a rate well beyond pre-pandemic levels, and it sounds like a lot – but Weber said it is “absolutely essential” that Airbus carry out its ambitious plans to ramp up production.

“Our customers … are desperately awaiting their aircraft, and they want even more,” he said. The global market for single-aisle jetliners is estimated at 30,000 over the next 20 years, with around 8,000 needed for North America and Latin America.

Taylor concurred. “When you look at the growth and the 6,000 aircraft backlog on the single aisle alone … we made a commitment to build 75 a month. The only way we get to that is by adding this expansion, the third final line in Mobile,” he said.

“Mobile is going to be the third largest final assembly line in Airbus, after Toulouse and Hamburg,” said Weber. “This is going to be our flagship in North America. Not only [in] numbers but also in latest-generation infrastructure, state of the art Final Assembly Lines, latest automation technology … and all that supported by a strong, fantastic culture that we experience here.”

Weber hinted that as it grows, the Mobile facility may come to depend less on Europe and to enjoy more autonomy.

Weber praised local leaders for making it all possible, with infrastructure work and other help. “I can say this is really an exceptional level of support that I experience here [and] it is not the same everywhere,” Weber said.

“Folks, we are rising to the occasion,” said Gov. Kay Ivey. “This is Team Alabama at its best. … Alabama stands ready to roll up our sleevesand get the job done.”

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson offered an interesting glimpse of the behind-the-scenes challenges.

“Airbus, what you’ve done for us is something that I’m not sure we could have ever imagined years ago,” said Stimpson. “You’ve changed the image of our city.”

“But the other thing you did for us is, you stretched us,” Stimpson continued. “You caused us to do things that we had no clue that we could really do. We made a lot of promises on the front end, we were hoping we could do them, but you know I think that by now we’ve shown you that we can do them. And we will continue to do that.”

Part of that, he said, is for the city to continue investing in the quality of life the city offers Airbus employees.

Airbus also builds a smaller family of jets, the A220 family, in Mobile. The overall expansion focuses mainly on expanding capacity for A320s, but it’s not as simple as adding a second assembly line: It involves new paint facilities, new hangars, and expansion of the delivery center and more.

Company officials said that Airbus currently employs about 1,800 people at the facility, with plans for that to rise to around 2,800 as the new facilities become operational.

“We have 1,800 employees in Mobile working in the final assembly lines,” said Taylor. “Airbus in the community has 2,200 (when adding in the) engineering center and space and defense center that was here before (the FALs). We committed to 1,000 new jobs.”