Airbus opens final assembly line for A320 aircraft in China

Aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus Industrie has opened a final assembly line for its A320 aircraft in Tianjin in northern China. The new facility is the first of its kind built by Airbus outside Europe.

Airbus, the aircraft-manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace consortium, is based in Toulouse, France. With significant activity across Europe, Airbus Industrie produces about half of the world’s jet airliners.

The final assembly line, a joint venture between Airbus Industrie and Tianjin Zhongtian Aviation Industry Investment Company, China, was built in just 15 months, according to Thomas Enders, chief executive officer of Airbus, who attended the inauguration ceremony along with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao.

Thomas Enders said while addressing the ceremony: “The first Airbus A320 aircraft assembled at the Tianjin facility is expected to come off the line by the summer 2009. With the final assembly line here in Tianjin, we deepen and expand our industrial relationship, which is a key pillar of the internationalization strategy of Airbus. It is an assembly line with the latest state-of-the-art technologies, as it has integrated technologies from both lines in France and Germany.”

The Airbus’ final assembly line located at Tianjin – the third one of its kind after such lines in Toulouse in France, and Hamburg in Germany – is meant to assemble two types of aircraft of the A320 family: the A319 and A320. The A320 family, which includes the A318, A319, A320 and A321, is recognised as the benchmark single-aisle aircraft family, according to Thomas Enders.

The Tianjin line will be able to assemble 44 aircraft a year by 2011. The A319 and A320 aircraft will be assembled and delivered in China to the same standards as those assembled and delivered in Europe, according to Enders.

China is the world’s second largest aviation market. According to an estimate by Airbus Industrie earlier, the mainland area of China would need over 3,000 aircraft between 2006 and 2025, including 180 Airbus A380 Superjumbo planes, the largest passenger airliner in the world.

Apart from setting up the final assembly line for the A320 aircraft in Tianjin, Airbus Industrie bought high-quality components and materials worth US $70 million from Chinese companies in 2007 alone, the company’s CEO announced, adding, “this week, we set a new goal worth US $1 billion of annual sourcing from Chinese companies in 2020.”

Airbus had earlier said it intended to triple the annual China sourcing by 2010 to over US $200 million.

At present, the Boeing Company, the major aerospace and defence manufacturer with its international headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois, the United States, and Airbus Industrie dominate the world’s market for large aircraft. And, only manufacturers in the United States, Europe and Russia currently possess the technology to build big planes.

According to aviation analysts, China has begun actively developing technologies to make big passenger aircraft. In May 2008, China set up, in Shanghai, its first company to manufacture large passenger planes.

Now, with the opening of the Airbus assembly line in Tianjin, analysts think that China would play a larger role in the world’s aviation industry since, as one of them said, “final assembly lines stand for a core competitiveness of aviation manufacturers.”