I suspect some UA engineers deserve a pat on the back…
"Airbus’ first U.S.-built plane, the largest A320-family jet known as the A321, rolled out before a large crowd at the new $600 million factory in Mobile, Alabama, a site that was an empty field three years ago.
“We are so honored to be the first delivery here,” JetBlue Chief Executive Officer Robin Hayes said at the handover ceremony.
The plant employs about 600 people and is expected to attract a network of suppliers in the Mobile area. So far, major parts are shipped from Europe, except engines, which are U.S.-made and shipped from their suppliers, General Electric Co (GE.N) and Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), Airbus said.
The plant holds strategic and symbolic significance for the European plane maker. It ends an era in which Boeing was the only U.S.-based maker of such large commercial airplanes and it adds to Airbus’ industrial capacity as the world’s largest plane makers race to boost production through the end of the decade.
Being “U.S.-built” is not a decisive factor in aircraft sales but “it certainly doesn’t hurt to become part of the infrastructure,” Airbus sales chief John Leahy told Reuters."