The First Airbus Assembled in China Takes Flight

Airbus delivered the first A320 aircraft assembled in China to Dragon Aviation Leasing. Sichuan Airlines will deploy the aircraft on the Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei routes.

The Tianjin factory was launched in September last year as Airbus’ first aircraft final assembly line outside Europe. The A320 final assembly line in Tianjin will roll out 10 more aircraft this year.
Tom Enders, Airbus president and CEO, said that the company would retain its original plan to ramp up the production rate at Tianjin, to assemble four jets per month by the end of 2011. With an investment of more than 7 billion yuan ($1 billion), the Tianjin assembly plant is 51 percent owned by Airbus and 49 percent owned by Tianjin Zhongtian Aviation Industry Investment Co. Enders guaranteed that the A320 planes assembled in Tianjin shared the same standards as those made in Europe.

China introduced its first Airbus aircraft in 1985. By the end of April, the number of Airbus aircraft in operation on the mainland hit 488, compared with 29 in 1995, according to Airbus data.
It has been regarded as a strategic project for Airbus, not only to generate incremental sales in China, but also to ramp up the production capacity of its best-selling single-aisle A320 family of aircraft to meet strong market demand.

Airbus' US rival, Boeing, said last week during the Paris air show that the downturn in the commercial aircraft market has hit bottom and a recovery will come next year.

"The situation in China is much better than the rest of the world. China's domestic passenger traffic grew 17.3 percent year-on-year in the year's first four months. Sichuan Airlines is the largest carrier in China with a pure Airbus fleet of 40 A320s. According to industry estimates, China will need about 3,000 passenger aircraft over the next 20 years.