With a growing aerospace industry and a location that provides access to the Latin American market, an economic development group in Florida hopes to bring a major commercial airshow similar to the one in Paris to Miami every other year. Airbus has moved its Latin America and Caribbean sales team from France to Miami, and trains about 2,000 crew members at a center there each year. The Miami show could attract small and medium-size companies that can’t get to Paris, and would also be attractive to the U.S. military, said Frank Nero, CEO of The Beacon Council, an economic development group working for Dade County. The show could launch as soon as 2012, though “there are still many hurdles,” Nero told the Miami Herald.
Aviation accounts for almost 25 percent of Dade County’s total economy, according to the Herald. The international airshow could be held in Homestead, just outside Miami, and is considered a key initiative of the development group.
