Alabama Wooed Airbus as Executives Were Skeptical of Deep South

In June 2011, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley traveled to the Paris Air Show, Europe’s largest aerospace industry gathering, in hopes of luring foreign investment to his state.

Of the dozen meetings he lined up, the most important was with Tom Enders, then chief executive officer of the giant European aircraft maker Airbus SAS. The two had never met, though they were familiar with each other.