$206-Million Invested in Columbus Campus

Storied aero-engine marque and Raytheon subsidiary Pratt & Whitney has announced a $206-million expansion of its Columbus, Georgia campus.

Undertaken for purpose of upping production of critical components for Pratt & Whitney military and commercial engines, the endeavor promises to create as many as four-hundred jobs in Georgia’s second-largest city.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp contended Pratt & Whitney’s investment spoke to the robustness of the Peach State’s aerospace industry and evinced the actualization of his administration’s ambitions for Georgia’s business sector.

Kemp, who was in attendance at the Paris Air-Show at the time of Pratt & Whitney’s announcement, stated: “From the flights that go through the world’s most utilized airport [ATL] to the engines in the very airplanes, the Peach State is crucial to the movement of goods and products. Pratt & Whitney’s decision to expand will only further that reputation.”

Georgia is home to the world’s busiest airport—Hartsfield-Jackson International—and upwards of eight-hundred production facilities operated by aerospace concerns the likes of Lockheed-Martin and Gulfstream. In 2022, Georgia factories shipped $9.2-billion of aerospace products across the globe—thereby earning the state the distinction of being the U.S.’s fifth-largest exporter after Washington State, California, Texas, and New York.

Currently, Pratt & Whitney employs some two-thousand personnel in Columbus—primarily aero-engine maintainers and producers of compressor airfoils.

Slated to be completed by 2028, the planned Pratt & Whitney expansion will include 81,000-square-feet of equipment-filled engine maintenance space by virtue of which the facility will annually overhaul approximately four-hundred of the engine-maker’s Geared Turbofan (GTF) powerplants.

Pratt & Whitney president Shane Eddy declared: “Our Columbus business has grown from a small manufacturing facility to a large, state-of-the-art manufacturing and overhaul center. This investment will help ensure that we have the infrastructure, machinery, and equipment upgrades in place to provide the best products and services to our customers worldwide.”

Announcement of the expansion of Pratt & Whitney’s Columbus facility coincides with the opening of a new Delta Air Lines engine repair shop in which some one-hundred of the air-carrier’s Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanics service Pratt & Whitney GTF engines.

FMI: www.prattwhitney.com