NORTH CAROLINA CHOSEN FOR SUPERSONIC PASSENGER JET PLANT

A Colorado-based aviation company announced this week that it has chosen a North Carolina airport as the manufacturing site for next-generation supersonic passenger jets.

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If successful, the investment could create more than 2,000 jobs in the region over the next decade while cutting flight times significantly for a post-Concorde generation of air travelers.

Boom Supersonic announced that Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro will be the home for its first full-scale manufacturing plant, including the final assembly line, testing and delivery center for its proposed Overture supersonic airliner. Boom estimates it will create over 1,750 jobs by 2030, with a goal of reaching more than 2,400 jobs by 2032.

State and local governments have offered $230 million in financial incentives to make the project a reality, including money for airport improvements, which the legislature approved in November, and other sweeteners approved this week.

As with most such projects, some of the incentives going to Boom Technology Inc., the company’s parent, will be canceled if it doesn’t meet job-creation and investment goals. The anticipated capital investment is $500 million.

Jacksonville, Florida, and Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, were also in the running for the plant, according to a state Commerce Department official who publicly briefed an incentives committee prior to the announcement. The project had been known to recruiters as “Project Thunderbird.”