Huntsville on ‘international plane’ at Farnborough Air Show

Published on July 25, 2024

Mayor Tommy Battle is in London this week at the Farnborough International Airshow with other community leaders on a mission to attract more jobs and opportunities that will bolster the Huntsville economy.

Mayor Battle has been joined at the air show by Chip Cherry, president and CEO of the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce , and University of Alabama in Huntsville President Chuck Karr, among others. The contingent had opportunities to talk with U.S. Sen. Katie Britt and Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth as well as companies from around the world.

“It puts us on an international plane,” Mayor Battle said of Huntsville’s presence at the air show.

Conversations, both formal and informal, are critical aspects of the work at the air show, Mayor Battle said.

“It’s mostly contacts,” he said. “All business is made off of contacts and we’re making contacts with businesses throughout the world. Some businesses are already in Huntsville and they’re the ones we’re talking about. Have you got projects coming up? Are you going to be growing bigger? And would you want to do it in the Huntsville area? And some are companies that need to be in the Huntsville area, that do business in the Huntsville area but don’t have a location in our city. We take both of them and we try to meld them into something that provides jobs and for the economy for the Huntsville area.”

Cherry praised the partnerships of north Alabama entities in making the Huntsville area an attractive place for businesses to locate.

“We’re all working together,” he said. “We’re all in the business of growing the economy of our community and strengthening those jobs opportunities for citizens who live there and future citizens who are going to move there. We all provide a united front because at the end of the day, our clients don’t really care about geographic boundaries. They care about the overall business environment. Having that team approach gives them comfort that they are going to have a partner work with them as they build their entity or stand up new operations.”

While there were no specific projects he could immediately address, Mayor Battle said Huntsville will see benefits from their work at the air show.

“There are several projects we would love to talk about but can’t talk about because they are not developed enough yet and you don’t want to put pressure on the company until they see what we can do and we see what their requirements are,” he said. “We’ve got a number of projects that will come out of here, people who are looking at possibilities of growing their manufacturing or growing their engineering or maybe growing their space assets. As we work with each of them, we’re working with them to make sure they can continue to be a success and we can make sure that they add to Huntsville’s economy.”