Airbus SAS, whose parent lost out in a U.S. tender to supply refueling aircraft to Boeing Co., may add a final assembly line in the U.S. to buoy sales in the world's No. 1 market for single-aisle planes, an executive has said.

The European planemaker, which has final assembly lines in Toulouse, France, and Hamburg, Germany, as well as Tianjin, China, may find that adding a similar operation in the U.S. increases visibility with potential clients, Hans Peter Ring, chief financial officer of Airbus parent European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Co., said Tuesday in an interview.

While the Asia Pacific region is the most promising market for future sales of large, wide-body planes, North America is the single-biggest market for short- to medium-haul ones such as Airbus's A320. With North American carriers needing to replace thousands of aircraft in coming years, the European planemaker could have a commercial advantage in showing customers that its models are put together locally.

"The U.S. market is for the foreseeable future the biggest single-aisle market in the world, so there is some logic to be in the U.S.," said Ring after EADS and Airbus officials gave briefings in Hamburg on the business outlook for 2012. "It's certainly something that new management will need to look at."

EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois is retiring in May after the annual shareholder meeting and is expected to be succeeded by Tom Enders, now chief of Airbus. EADS shareholders Daimler AG and Lagardere SCA have held off on final decisions about the shape of future management.

"I have to tell you there is no decision at all," Ring said. He declined to comment on the specifics of the management succession or whether he expected to retain his position as CFO of EADS.

Airbus last year broke Boeing's two-decade stranglehold on supplying AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, with an order for its A320neo, a single-aisle plane offering more fuel-efficient engines. It lost out in a contest with Boeing to supply Delta Air Lines Inc. and is currently competing against Boeing to win an order from UAL Corp.'s United Airlines. United is looking at the purchase of as many as 200 jets.

North America is "critical" for the sale of single-aisle planes, Airbus CEO Enders said today. 

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The firm, which has eight employees, will use the new space to better equip its sales and technical staff as the company continues to expand its list of customers.

"Blue Ocean has grown over the past three years, they're well positioned to to serve their customers in Birmingham and across the state," Devon Laney, chief operating officer of Innovation Depot, said in a prepared statement

Blue Ocean has been housed at Innovation Depot for three years. The new space will provide about 15 percent more area for the company than the 1,700 square feet it has. The previous office was a large room with cubicles, but the area is a collection of offices divided by department. The next move will be to offices outside of the Innovation Depot, as most companies have a goal of "graduating" from the business incubator after five years.