The site was appealing for another important reason: It was on American soil.

The Airbus Group had been looking for ways to break Boeing’s stronghold in the United States. Locating part of its global production in Mobile would create a natural hedge against exchange-rate swings between the euro and the dollar and reduce some of the cost of transporting the $16.5 billion in components that Airbus buys from American aerospace suppliers each year. Labor costs were also substantially lower compared with Europe. While Alabama had more unionized employees than other states in the South, it still had a so-called right-to-work law, which prevents private-sector unions from requiring workers to pay union dues.

Airbus also wanted to crack the American military market, the world’s largest. Military, space and security activities worldwide generate just 18 percent of the Airbus Group’s revenue, compared with 34 percent at Boeing. A major American government contract would help the company reduce its dependence on commercial jets.

To get big military deals, however, Airbus would need sway with officials in Washington, where large American contractors rank among the most powerful business lobbying groups.

Airbus, and Mobile, know the difficulty of pulling that off.

In 2008, the company, in conjunction with Northrop Grumman, won a $35 billion contract to build 179 new tankers, based on Airbus’s A330 wide-body jet, for the Air Force. The tankers were to be made in Mobile, where Airbus’s parent company — then known as EADS — already had a small office with fewer than 100 engineers and aerospace designers.

But Boeing protested, arguing that its proposal had been unfairly judged as more costly. The competition for the tanker deal was reopened.

That day sticks with Will Fusaiotti, who lives in Mobile. “You just had the feeling that Mobile deserved to get this,” he said.

Mr. Fusaiotti is the owner of Foosackly’s, a chain of chicken finger restaurants. He had no particular passion for airplanes. But when he saw the news of the Pentagon’s reconsideration, he felt his community had been cheated. He sent an employee to put up a defiant message on the marquee sign at one of his restaurants. “We would like to offer Boeing a finger.”