Arizona soars to third most-attractive state for aerospace manufacturing
Story Highlights
- Arizona ranks third in U.S. for aerospace manufacturing attractiveness
- PwC report highlights Arizona’s industry depth and infrastructure improvements
- Major aerospace companies operate in Arizona, with recent expansions noted
Arizona has become the third most-attractive location in the United States for aerospace and defense manufacturing and investment, according to a new report on the industry.
The aerospace manufacturing attractiveness rankings from PwC bumped the Grand Canyon state up three spots from No. 6 to No. 3 this year, with only Texas and Florida coming in ahead.
PwC’s report is based on an Attractiveness Index compiled from measures in categories including cost, labor, infrastructure, industry, economy and tax policy.
In particular, Arizona stood out in the industry category, ranking No. 2 in that measure, which accounts for the depth of the industry in a place. The state’s next-highest placements were No. 7 for infrastructure and No. 10 for tax policy. PwC noted that all three of those rankings were improvements from the previous report — up from 13th, 10th and 15th, respectively.
“The state, which ranks among the top-five US states in A&D employment, remains at the forefront of technological innovation in many areas; the new Future48 Workforce Accelerator program, announced by the governor in early 2025, could enhance the state’s competitiveness in the sector still further,” the report said about Arizona.
Key AZ players: Raytheon, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman
Arizona is home to a number of major aerospace industry facilities, including RTX Corp.’s Raytheon missile operation in Tucson; Phoenix-based Honeywell Aerospace, which is spinning off into a separate company late this year from Honeywell International Inc.; Northrop Grumman, which is currently testing a new lunar mission module for NASA; and Boeing, which builds Apache helicopters in Mesa and which announced 200 layoffs late last year. Many smaller operations also exist in Arizona’s ecosystem.
The report’s authors highlighted the Valley expansion of aftermarket aircraft part supplier Setna iO, which bought a large Tempe industrial building last year, allowing it to boost its local repair and distribution capabilities. Another aircraft aftermarket services provider — Ascent Aviation Services — was also highlighted in the report for breaking ground on a new site in Marana, near Tucson, for passenger-to-freighter conversion and heavy maintenance.
Rounding out the top 10 after Arizona were Indiana, Georgia, Utah, Ohio, North Carolina, Washington and Virginia.
PwC, a professional services and accounting company formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, has been issuing its report since 2017, but it said it will change to a biennial format, which it said was intended to better capture emerging and evolving trends.
In addition to states, the report also ranked nations based on the same criteria but with the addition of a geopolitical risk category. The United States came in at the top of that list, coming in first for both infrastructure and industry, third for economy and fourth for cost. The U.S. was actually No. 6 for geopolitical risk, No. 8 for labor and No. 13 for tax policy.
Following the U.S. were Singapore, South Korea, Canada and Japan in the top five.