Originally Posted by WHBM
I'm not quite clear why the French government thinks it has a monopoly on controlling Airbus locations (see article). It's a European-wide company.
Well I think the French government would have some real experience in this if they have looked at some past history, not so much for other participating countries. Recall that GE and Snecma (mainly French government owned at the time) joined forces to develop, assemble, test, market and sell CFM56 engines. The original slogan was
"Share to Gain". Fan and LPT modules are manufactured in France and shipped to the US, Compressor and HPT modules are manufactured in the US and shipped to France. 50% of the engines are assembled in France, the other 50% are assembled in the US.
"Gain" it turned out to be, 26,000 engines later and still going strong. In the beginning, it was a pretty rocky start at in the US regarding union objections (lost jobs), technology transfers (US government) and political pressures (Washington). Nobody is complaining now.
The Airbus A-320 can work in very much the same manner. As has been pointed out, there is a great port facility to accept fuselage sections, wings, tail and vertical stabilizers, the workforce will be non-union and the talent is available. Also, the US market is a big market for Airbus/Boeing single aisle jets with airline consolidation and the need for new equipment. Boeing has their eyes set on China. They enjoy having a large market share there and it has more potential as time goes on.
The Airbus timing is good if they move quickly with the A-320 Neo going into production in a few years. Aircraft assembly always turns out to be the bottleneck when times are good. The ability to have two assembly plants overcomes many of the problems verses having only one plant. IMHO, this would be a good business move for Airbus to go forward with. Timing is everything...