Airbus worldwide - Airbus in North America

Airbus continues to celebrate its sustained average of half the global commercial airline market, in large part through its business in North America. Significant accomplishments in sales, marketing and service of all its aircraft from the smallest A318 to the largest A380 have been achieved in the United States and Canada, where customers have ordered every single model of Airbus aircraft. That evolution of this regional market has been a rapid one.

In the mid-1990s, Airbus delivered about one airplane per month to a North American customer. There are now three Airbus aircraft per week being delivered to customers in the U.S. and Canada. That phenomenal growth has helped Airbus to become the leading aircraft manufacturer in the world, and has generated a growing presence in the region of not just Airbus planes, but Airbus people as well.

Airbus delivered its 1000th aircraft to a North American customer in 2004. Airbus booked its 5000th A320 Family order in January 2007 – achieved via an order of Florida’s Spirit Airlines. Those landmarks commemorate more than three decades of progress by an Airbus team of nearly 600 sales, marketing, service and engineering personnel based in the U.S. and Canada. That hard work continues to pay off - as of the end of 2006, there were more than 1700 Airbus deliveries in North America, with a backlog of some 600 aircraft due to North America customers.

In addition to having resident Airbus representatives at the hubs of every North American airline, there are six main outposts of Airbus activity in the U.S.:

Airbus North America headquarters is just outside Washington, D.C., in Herndon, Virginia. The facility employs some 140 people in sales, marketing, and communications for Airbus customers in the U.S. and Canada. This facility also serves as headquarters for Airbus North America Customer Services. The employees here reflect the diversity in nationality that is so commonplace at Airbus worldwide, offering North American customers daily interaction with a company that offers a true global perspective.

Nearby in Ashburn, Virginia, another 75 employees keep the 24-hour Airbus Spares Center humming, shipping aircraft parts, tools and sections to customers in the Americas. This facility is one of three Airbus Spares facilities in the world..

Airbus opened its first design and engineering center outside of Europe in 2002 - in Wichita, Kansas. At Airbus North America Engineering, some 210 engineers are focused on the A340 and A380. The facility doubled its size and tripled its workforce in its first two years of operations. In terms of population percentage, more people work in the aviation and aerospace industries in Wichita than in any city in the world, so Airbus expanding to this locale was a natural fit..

The southernmost U.S. facility is Airbus Training Center in Miami, Florida. The $50 million custom-built complex, one of three Airbus training facilities worldwide, houses 110 staff members dedicated to training more than 3,000 air crew each year in a range of full-flight simulators, trainers and computer-based training programs. Most all the trainees are based in the Americas..

Airbus North America has a Safety and Technical Affairs office in Washington D.C., convenient to the headquarters of the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board. This ten-person office specializes in daily interaction with these federal agencies relative to regulatory issues, continuing to build the positive relationships between Airbus and U.S. government organizations. This facility is also home base for Airbus North America’s government relations staff, allowing easy exchange of information between the manufacturer and U.S. elected representatives.

Construction was completed in early 2007 on the newest Airbus facility in the U.S. – Airbus North America Engineering in Mobile, Alabama. This facility is responsible for various interior elements of Airbus’ newest aircraft, the A350XWB, including design and engineering work on the cabin, crew rest, lavatories and galleys. At full capacity, the office will employ 150 engineers. Should EADS, an Airbus parent company, receive an order to modernize the U.S. Air Force’s tanker fleet with the Northrop Grumman KC-30, this facility could expand into a larger-scale industrial site related to that aircraft.

In addition to direct Airbus employees in the U.S., more than 190,000 American jobs are supported by Airbus contracts with hundreds of U.S. companies – in fact, Airbus spends some 46 percent of its aircraft-related procurement in the U.S., more than in any country in the world. In 2006, Airbus spent $10.2 billion on parts, components, tooling and services with American companies. The United States is the largest single supplier country to Airbus, making Airbus the largest export customer for the U.S aerospace industry. A large part of this business is dedicated to the A380, so the supplier figures in terms of dollars and people, are set only to grow as the A380 becomes more commonplace at airports worldwide.

Included in the Airbus network of U.S. suppliers are some of the most respected names in aerospace, including: Alcoa, Eaton, Goodrich, GE, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, Rockwell Collins, United Technologies and Vought Aircraft. In addition, Airbus has partnerships with many small and medium-sized U.S. companies like Faber, Electroimpact and GKN Aerospace.

There is a customer in North America for every single model of Airbus aircraft, from the A318 to the A380. Among the customers for the more than 2,500 Airbus aircraft ordered in North America so far are: Air Canada, FedEx, Frontier Airlines, GECAS, International Lease Finance Corporation, JetBlue, Northwest Airlines, Skybus, Spirit Airlines, United Airlines, UPS, US Airways and Virgin America. The balance of Airbus customers in the region are a mix of leasing companies, low-cost carriers and established large, legacy airlines, diversifying the Airbus customer base in one of the strongest markets in the world.






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