Beijing (EFE).- The European aeronautical consortium Airbus announced today that it is going to build a second assembly line for single-aisle A320 family aircraft at its Tianjin plant in China, which should come into service in the second half of 2025, which will allow it to double its production capacity in that country.
This second line in Tianjin, with an investment that the European group has avoided quantifying, will contribute to the objective that Airbus has set to increase its production rate worldwide to 75 A320 family aircraft in 2026 compared to around 45 at month in 2022, the European aeronautical group said Thursday.
The announcement was made this Thursday in Beijing, where the CEO of Airbus, Guillaume Faury, was on the occasion of the visit to China of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and his interview with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jingpin, at the that this and other agreements were presented.
Faury noted, in statements to the press, that the second assembly line will contribute to the strength of the factory in the current context of political and commercial tensions between the large economic blocks.
Four planes are now leaving the production line in Tianjin every month, a figure that should rise to six by the end of the year. Thanks to the second, it should gradually increase to a dozen units per month, although that is not the limit of capacity.
Manufacture in China for the Chinese market
This factory, in its current size, is not enough to supply Chinese companies, which represent around 20% of the European manufacturer’s deliveries, a percentage that could increase given the good performance and prospects of aviation there.
Specifically, the European manufacturer forecasts that Chinese air traffic will grow at a rate of 5.3% per year in the next 20 years, compared to an increase of 3.6% on a global scale.
Airbus manufactures a part of the single-aisle aircraft that are destined for these Chinese airlines at its industrial facilities in Europe, Toulouse, France, and Hamburg, Germany.
To reach the goal of 75 A320 Family aircraft per month by 2026, the company has planned to increase the number of assembly lines in all the factories where it manufactures these aircraft, to a total of ten: four in Hamburg, two in Toulouse, two in Tianjin and another two in Mobile, in the United States.
All of them will have the capacity to assemble the largest model in the family, the A321, which is also the one with the best commercial dynamics.
In relation to possible tensions with the supply chain in China, Faury recalled that Airbus works with “a global system” for its aircraft parts and has “a very competitive ecosystem.”
He also insisted that for Airbus it makes a lot of sense to produce in China for the Chinese market itself.
Beijing gives green light to an order for 160 Airbus planes
In addition, within the framework of this Macron-Xi meeting, the Chinese authorities gave their go-ahead to formalize an order from the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus for the rental company CASC for 160 aircraft.
These are 150 aircraft from the A320 single-aisle family and the remaining 10 from the A350 long-range double-aisle model, the Elysee specified.
The authorization to China Aviation Supplies Company (CASC) refers to aircraft whose sale had already been communicated last year, and which since then have been on the Airbus order book.
In China, this validation is necessary for a national company to communicate to a manufacturer like Airbus that it can start manufacturing the aircraft.
On the other hand, Airbus signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China National Aviation Fuel Group (CNAF) to cooperate with a view to further development of the so-called sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which the sector presents as a vector to progress towards an increasingly decarbonised activity.
The main objective of this MoU is to optimize the SAF supply chain by diversifying its sources and increasing production with an eye toward the goal of representing 10% of aviation fuel by 2030.
