Following Monday's announcement that a new Airbus partnership could bring a second aircraft assembly line to Mobile, details such as when that plant might be built and how many jobs it might create remain unknown.
But even as they wait for answers to those and other questions to emerge, area officials say they have no doubt that the news is huge.
"I think it's phenomenal they have decided to continue to invest in Mobile," said Thomas "Chris" Curry, whose hiring as the new executive director of the Mobile Airport Authority was announced just last week.
After markets closed on Monday, Airbus and Canadian manufacturer Bombardier unveiled a new collaboration: Airbus will take a majority stake in the partnership building Bombardier's new C Series jets, using its global muscle to help build and sell them. Airbus CEO Tom Enders said that to meet anticipated demand, "we intend to build a second Final Assembly Line in Mobile, Alabama, serving U.S. customers."
Enders said the C Series jets complement the A320-family jets that Airbus assembles in Mobile: They're similar in configuration, but the CS100 and CS300 cover a range from roughly 100 to 150 seats, while the A320 and A321 cover the range from roughly 150 to 240 seats. Airbus has a smaller A319 variant, but it hasn't been a hot seller in recent years.
While Airbus sees healthy demand for the C Series in that market segment, Bombardier has a problem: A U.S. ruling, on a complaint by Boeing, that slaps a heavy tariff on imported jets. Assembling the C Series in the United States would circumvent that problem.
When Airbus built its $600 million A320 Final Assembly Line at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley, a package of state, county and city incentives worth almost $160 million was announced in 2012, well before construction began, and remained a subject of discussion as the facility neared completion in 2015. The first jets were delivered in spring 2016.
The suddenness of Monday's announcement means there's been no discussion -- yet -- of similar support for the proposed new plant. Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson emphasized that point to the Mobile City Council on Tuesday.
"It's an economic development project where it's not one that was worked by the Chamber, complemented by the state and by the city and the county," Stimpson said. "It was solely Airbus' decision based on the experience that they had in Mobile, they decided to do it." He said he thought that prior to Monday's revelation, nobody in Mobile knew the announcement was coming except maybe a few Airbus employees.
The mayor said he'd been given short notice that news was coming after the markets closed, and then he'd spoken by phone with T. Allen McArtor, who oversees Airbus operations in North America and Latin America. Airbus describes McArtor as having been "instrumental" in establishing the company's FAL in Mobile.
Stimpson said that in the brief call, McArtor told him that "the result of that partnership was that they will be building the C Series airplane, Bombardier's C Series airplane, in Mobile, Alabama. I had to kind of look at my phone and say, 'Did that really just happen?' Amazing, I mean, just that quick, the perception of Mobile Alabama has changed for the better in the aviation sector."
Stimpson compared the news to the excitement in 2012, when Airbus committed to building its Mobile FAL.
"I would say that this is probably, even though we are building airplanes today, this is of equal magnitude," he said. "Because what will happen, because we will be building two different airplanes, there will be an impetus for the suppliers to those planes to maybe, there'll be an impetus to go ahead and move to Mobile or to this region to supply both airplanes. So, a huge announcement. This is one of those announcements for economic development I think that is a validation of things going on well, businesses being pleased with Mobile."
Stimpson said that when he started asking McArtor about the number of planes the assembly line might produce or how many jobs it might create, "he was not able to answer those, just because they did not know at this time."
The development would mean a surge in activity for the Mobile Airport Authority, which oversees the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley as well as Mobile Regional Airport. Curry deferred most comment to Elliot Maisel, the chairman of the MAA board.
Maisel agreed with Stimpson's view that the Monday announcement had come as a surprise - strictly speaking, at least. But he said that from the earliest stages of planning Airbus's FAL at the Aeroplex, the possibility of some kind of future expansion had been considered.
"It has been contemplated that this could occur," said Maisel. "So we're not starting from zero."
"We have a nice-sized piece of land out there," he added.
Maisel also stressed that the long-term local, state and regional effort to support Airbus and meet its needs also had been a precursor to Airbus' decision. That involved a lot of partner agencies and went all the way from former Gov. Bob Riley's initial support to new Gov. Kay Ivey's decision to attend the Paris Air Show earlier this year, shortly after taking office.
"We've maintained a great relationship and built their trust and confidence," Maisel said. In other words, while local officials might not have know the announcement was coming, they did lay some of the groundwork for it.
Maisel stressed the view that the deal isn't just about Airbus and the Aeroplex's growing role as a hub of aerospace industry development.
The MAA's "No. 1 priority and mission is to provide the best passenger air service for the citizens of our region," he said. "The good news is, frankly, they'll be very beneficial to that project."
The more revenue the MAA gets from activity at Brookley, Maisel said, the more resources it has to improve passenger air service. "That's our purview, that drives everything," he said. "All that is fuel for the mission, which is providing our citizens with the best possible air service."
"The timing is terrific for Mobile Airport Authority because Chris Curry is a well trained and skilled and experienced expert at all things [related to] airport operations," Maisel said. He said he saw Curry's ability to map out the best use for specific properties, in order to get the most benefit out of them, as a particular strength.
Asked whether Mobilians should celebrate the proposed new plant now, or reserve some judgment until the runway has better visibility, Maisel suggested a bit of both.
"The very fact that the great international manufacturer Airbus would enter a partnership with a rival manufacturer, in reliance on their trust and confidence in the workforce in Mobile, is huge," he said. "Of course we should celebrate, of course we should be proud of it."
"Certainly a move of this enormity, of this scope, will take a lot of work," Maisel added. Despite the note of caution, he said that he was confident the regional partnership that had supported Airbus so far could get the job done.
"The Airport Authority certainly welcomes the opportunity," he said.