Airbus, which last year paid USD$12 billion to US suppliers of parts and services for its planes, will double that spending by 2020 as it gears up to build a new plant in Mobile, Alabama.
Airbus Americas Chairman Allan McArtor will tell an educational summit in Los Angeles on Friday that the spending boost will result from the company's planned USD$600 million plant to assemble its A320 short- to medium-range planes.
Southern California is likely to be a big winner from the procurement, with a doubling of the USD$1 billion the aircraft maker spends in the region.
"LA has a good talent base and there's a lot of innovation going on here," McArtor said in an interview after attending groundbreaking ceremonies for the USD$80 million factory that Aerospace Dynamics is building to supply large structural components of Airbus's next generation A350 aircraft.
To get the added work, however, the Airbus executive said southern California will need to become more competitive with other states and countries by improving its educational institutions to turn out skilled workers, engineers and others the aerospace industry will demand.
"We have to make it attractive here so that the brightest kids don't go to private equity firms," McArtor said. "If they can't improve the business climate here, then southern California may lose out to South Carolina, Texas or somewhere else."
By 2015 Airbus expects to have 13 daily flights by carriers flying its A380 aircraft to Los Angeles' LAX Airport.
That equates to USD$9.4 billion in added economic activity in tourism and other services, Airbus said, making calculations based on a 2007 study by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation.
The flights would add an estimated 3,900 jobs in the region.
Airbus, which spends more than 40 percent of its procurement budget on US-based suppliers, projects annual growth in air travel will more than double over the next 20 years.
By 2031, McArtor estimated 32,550 planes will be in service, up from 15,550 today.
By then, China will pass the United States as the largest market for air travel, the executive said, and will account for 35 percent of all newly delivered aircraft. North America and Europe will each account for 21 percent.
