Gov. Rick Scott highlighted Floridas aerospace and logistics industries this week as he continued highlighting job creation across the Sunshine State.
On Thursday, Scott headed to South Florida to help launch Boeings 787 customer training campus in Miami which will create more than 100 jobs.
I am proud to see Boeing consolidate their training capabilities in the Americas to Miami, Scott said. Not only does this support more than 100 jobs for Florida families, but it also continues to prove that Miami is an international hub for business.
Florida is home to one of the nations largest aerospace and aviation industries and with the creation of nearly 370,000 private-sector jobs since December 2010, it is clear that our policies to create opportunities for Florida families are working, Scott added. We are pleased that Boeings Miami campus will be one of the largest commercial flight training facilities in the world, and further proves that Florida is a global leader in aerospace and aviation.
Boeing officials said moving the training campus from Seattle to Miami will help their company on a global level.
Miami has always been an important Boeing training campus and the largest campus in our global network. Now it will also play an expanded role in training the pilots and technicians who will fly and maintain the groundbreaking 787 Dreamliner, said Sherry Carbary, the vice president of Boeing Flight Services. Miamis location at the crossroads of the Americas offers tremendous advantages as a preferred location for airlines based in Latin America, Canada and the United States. Customers also travel from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and China to conduct training in Miami.
Carbary also insisted that Boeing was prepared to invest in South Florida operations.
Boeing is adding nearly a hundred million dollars in training assets to the Miami campus, representing a significant positive impact for the local Miami-Dade economy, Carbary said. The result will be a premier state-of-the-art training campus staffed by world-class qualified and experienced pilots and instructors all providing the highest quality training in a well-established, flexible and productive work environment.
Other elected officeholders, including U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., were also on hand to launch the new Boeing facility.
Earlier in the week, Scott was in Central Florida to make another announcement regarding an airlines logistics company creating more jobs in the Sunshine State. On Wednesday, Scott announced that logistics company National Air Cargo Holdings Inc. will relocate its corporate headquarters from Michigan to Orlando, creating 105 new jobs over a two-year period. National Airlines, a subsidiary of National Air Cargo Holdings, will also relocate to Orlando.
Todays great news from National Air Cargo Holdings further illustrates the pro-business climate we have built in Florida, Scott said. Last month we added 34,500 private-sector jobs the largest monthly increase in two-and-a-half years. Were creating the most pro-business climate in the nation and we know its working in Florida.
Florida provides an aviation-rich environment for our growing airlines, and a wonderful home base for our employees, says Glen Joerger, president of National Airlines. Our former home at the Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Mich., served us well when we flew DC-8s; however, once we retired those aircraft and started flying the larger Boeing aircraft all over the world, we no longer needed our business offices to be located in close proximity to a runway.
We considered a number of cities when looking to move Orlando was the best in every measure, Joerger added.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com.
