A new aviation player
Saturday's lead editorial.
PTI Airport was never considered for a substantial aviation project that landed at the N.C. Global TransPark near Kinston Wednesday.
Triad airport and economic-development officials applauded the TransPark’s triumph this week. Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems will build a design-and-manufacturing facility to produce the center fuselage frame section for the Airbus A350 XWB. The company said it will employ more than 1,000 workers at an average wage of $48,000 within six years.
“It’s great for the state,” said Dan Lynch, president of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance. “In the world of aviation, this just puts another pin on the map for North Carolina.”
“The key is to develop the commercial aerospace industry in North Carolina so every success redounds to the benefit of all NC sites,” UNC-Chapel Hill professor John Kasarda wrote in an e-mail from Russia. Kasarda is consulting with Triad leaders on the development of an “aerotropolis” surrounding PTI and doesn’t see the TransPark as a competitor.
“I’m sorry we don’t have it,” added Henry Isaacson, chairman of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority. “We can’t win them all, but we’re going to get our share, plus.”
PTI didn’t have a chance for this one. Spirit looked for locations as close as possible to a major port, spokeswoman Debbie Gann said Thursday. North Carolina has two, in Wilmington and Morehead City. The 65x20-foot fuselage sections have to be hauled, by truck or train, to the coast for overseas shipping.
Spirit also wanted to be near the state’s military bases and their “retiring military labor force,” Gann said.
There are reasons to believe Lynch is right about statewide benefits. This helps the relatively depressed eastern North Carolina economy. It also spotlights the community college system’s ability to train workers for high-skilled aviation industry jobs — the same thing GTCC is doing here already, with plans for expansion. Very few workers will be hired with only a high school education, Gann said. And then there’s industry attention won by the state’s favorable business climate — sweetened in this case by generous incentives.
The Triad still maintains the advantage it claimed a decade ago when FedEx chose PTI over the TransPark as the location for its mid-Atlantic air-cargo hub, Isaacson believes. He cited Dell, HondaJet and Polo.com as some of the companies that located here in anticipation of the FedEx facility’s opening next year. FedEx liked the Triad’s extensive rail and highway network, among other advantages.
The TransPark, created by the state in 1991, has been under-utilized. Its overdue development is good for the state, and it won’t deny the Triad opportunities to further build an aviation industry here.
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