Georgia facility that fuels America’s ‘arsenal in the sky’ will get bigger

COLUMBUS, Ga. — How does a high-octane jet engine maker celebrate completing a massive expansion?

By injecting more fuel and trying to fly even higher.

Elected officials and company leaders gathered Tuesday to celebrate the completion of a $206 million expansion to Pratt & Whitney’s campus in Columbus. But before the ceremonial ribbon was cut, the company announced another $200 million expansion is on the horizon.

The additional round of investment further bolsters Pratt & Whitney’s presence in Columbus, a Middle Georgia city heavily influenced by nearby Fort Benning and military culture. The back-to-back expansions also highlight how demand keeps accelerating for the company’s cutting-edge engines.

“It’ll increase our facility’s output for compressor and turbine discs, which are really the heart of these engines, by some 30%,” Shane Eddy, president of Pratt & Whitney, told a crowd of state and local dignitaries Wednesday. “These are the most critical and complex parts that we make.”

Pratt & Whitney, a Connecticut-based subsidiary of Fortune 500 aerospace and defense giant RTX Corp., first came to Georgia’s second-largest city in 1984. The operation steadily grew more robust over the decades and encompasses two facilities, the Columbus Engine Center and Columbus Forge, which are both cornerstone’s of the company’s engine manufacturing machine.

Eddy said the company since 2008 has invested more than $1 billion into the campus along Macon Road, which now employs about 2,600 workers. The employees primarily focus on maintaining hundreds of engines and producing compressor airfoils, which are the metal blades seen whirring in a jet turbine that produce thrust.

Pratt & Whitney has grown into the world’s second-largest commercial aircraft engine manufacturer. Its customers include Airbus, a supplier of passenger jets for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and carriers around the world.

The company also contributes to — and gets to benefit from — Georgia’s aerospace sector, which is one of the country’s largest. Georgia is home to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest, and more than 800 aerospace facilities.

The state’s top export in 2024 was civilian aircraft and ancillary parts, and Georgia boasts a robust network of aviation, flight and drone companies: Delta, Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. and PBS Aerospace are just a few.