Airbus' low-profile overhaul takes flight

In the aluminum world, aerospace is one of those sectors everyone recognizes as important, but it rarely drives the market narrative the way construction, automotive, or packaging does. The tonnage just isn’t comparable.

Aluminum volumes tied to fuselage sections, wing spars, and machined structural components are meaningful, but they sit miles behind the ocean of metal going into siding, beverage cans, truck bodies, and auto sheet.

What aerospace does have is outsized complexity.

It’s an insular supply chain where a relatively small number of mills and conversion shops are qualified to make the alloys and shapes that commercial aircraft producers demand.

And the handful of plants that are approved, aerospace is usually the lifeblood: When production rates rise, they thrive. When rates fall, there’s nowhere else to hide.

Two commercial giants dominate that ecosystem – Boeing and Airbus. Historically, Boeing has soaked up most of the headlines in the US simply because it’s the legacy domestic manufacturer.

But every so often, a cluster of Airbus-related developments piles up, and suddenly the quieter side of the aerospace duopoly deserves a closer look.

Kinston’s reset

Airbus officially took over the Kinston, NC, which was formerly a Spirit AeroSystems facility. The facility was renamed Airbus AeroSystems Kinston and roughly 1,000 employees were folded into the Blagnac, France-based company’s US industrial base.

AeroSystems will operate as a Center of Excellence for advanced composite structures on the A350 program, producing fuselage sections and wing spar components.

It’s a notable move for two reasons. First, Airbus has spent years tightening control over critical aerostructures work after early supply chain shocks. Second, the company’s US footprint is no longer just a final-assembly outpost in Mobile, Ala.

Spirit AeroSystems acquisitions

Airbus’ deal for Spirit’s Airbus-dedicated operations is complete. The transaction delivers over 4,000 employees and several high-stakes work packages into Airbus entities around the world.

In addition to the Kinston site, that includes the Saint-Nazaire operation in France, also tied to A350 fuselage sections, the Casablanca, Morocco, facility supplying components for the A321 and A220 families, and the Belfast, Northern Ireland, site responsible for A220 wings and mid-fuselage assemblies.

Even the Prestwick, Scotland, operation that machines wing components for the A320 and A350 lines joins the Airbus orbit, along with the A220 pylon production previously based in Wichita, Kansas, which Airbus is shifting to its Saint-Eloi facility in Toulouse, France.

Mobile expansion and Airbus recalibrations

At the Alabama assembly plant, Airbus inaugurated a second A320 Family final assembly line. The site houses two A320 lines and one A220 line, with more than a million square feet of new hangar and logistics space. The timing is helpful as Airbus attempts to hit its 2027 goal of producing 75 A320-family aircraft per month globally. Elsewhere, Airbus trimmed its 2025 delivery target to ~790 aircraft due to a supplier quality issue involving A320 fuselage panels.

Inside Airbus’ small aerospace aluminum circle

One of the quieter realities of the Airbus supply chain is how short the US list for facilities approved to supply high-strength, semi-fabricated aluminum products for structural applications.

Universal Alloy Corporation (UAC), parent company of Montana Aerospace, is one of the rare exceptions. Their Canton, Ohio, facility holds broad Airbus approvals across a variety of products, including 2014, 2024, and 7075 alloy grade extrusions and round products. That’s not a common achievement among US suppliers.

Montana Aerospace, an operating division of UAC, recently secured a multi-year contract extension with Airbus for extrusion supply for Airbus US and European operations. Airbus typically leans on a deep European supplier network for their aluminum components, so UAC’s position inside the US market remains genuinely unique.

Extrusions are just one slice of Airbus’ aluminum appetite.

On the plate and sheet side, the comparable US heavyweight Kaiser Aluminum’s Trentwood facility in Washington and Arconic’s Davenport Works in Iowa are both long-established suppliers approved across many of the same alloys UAC touches, just in rolled rather than extruded form.

Both sites have recently completed expansions, with Kaiser Trentwood expanding heat-treated plate capacity and Arconic’s Davenport Works doubling its aerospace-relevant high-purity ingot capacity.

Arconic’s Lafayette Operations in Indiana has also historically held Airbus approvals, and produces some of the less common aluminum-lithium 2XXX series alloys.

And then there’s Constellium’s Ravenswood plant in West Virginia, which is primarily approved to supply plate products and remains a key fixture in the North American supply chain.

Conclusion

None of these developments individually move global aluminum markets. Aerospace still trails far behind the big three aluminum-hungry sectors, and even a record year of build-rates won’t nudge Midwest premiums the way a single beverage-can sheet outage would.

Nevertheless, Airbus is in the middle of a long-term, steady consolidation of its industrial footprint, and the US is becoming a bigger parts of that story than ever before.

Kinston transitions, Spirit acquisition closings, Mobile expansions, and contract renewals don’t necessarily hit all at once, usually. And when they do, it shows how much of this supply chain normally hums below the surface.

If nothing else, it’s been a good couple of weeks to pay attention to Airbus news.

Nicholas Bell

Nicholas brings over half a decade of experience covering metals markets, pricing trends, and supply chain dynamics. Prior to joining AMU, he reported on aluminum, high-temperature scrap, and ferro-alloy markets at Argus Media, with additional coverage of minor metals and rare earths. His work has built deep expertise in North American metals pricing and trade flows. A native of Houston, Nicholas holds a bachelor’s degree in Media Production and an MBA with a concentration in Finance, both from the University of Houston.