Airbus celebrated the delivery of 200th A320 Family aircraft assembled by the Airbus Tianjin Final Assembly Line (FALC) in China.
Airbus celebrated the delivery of 200th A320 Family aircraft assembled by the Airbus Tianjin Final Assembly Line (FALC) in China.
Daniel Baubil, Airbus Executive Vice President and Head of Single Aisle Family Programme handed over the A319, a member of the A320 Family, to China Eastern Airlines.
Officials from China and Europe, representatives of China Eastern Airlines, Airbus and its Chinese partners, Tianjin Free Trade Zone (TJFTZ) and Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), as well as employees of the FALC and Airbus Tianjin Delivery Centre (ATDC), were in attendance.
FALC, inaugurated in 2008, is a joint venture between Airbus, the TJFTZ and AVIC. It is the third A320 Family final assembly line in the world after the FALs in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany and the first outside Europe. The ATDC delivered the first aircraft assembled in FALC to Sichuan Airlines in June 2009.
In March 2014, Airbus, TJFTZ and AVIC agreed to extend the successful Joint Venture for another 10 years, from 2016 to 2025. The extension, called “Phase II”, will include the final assembly of the A320neo Family from 2017 onwards for delivery to the Asian region.
China Eastern is one of the largest airlines in China and was the first Chinese airline to operate Airbus aircraft (A310) in 1985. Today, China Eastern Airlines operates a fleet of more than 270 Airbus Single Aisle and Wide-Body aircraft.
Today, some 1,100 Airbus aircraft are being operated by Chinese airlines, accounting for some 50% of the total fleet of aircraft over 100 seats in China. To date, more than 900 Airbus A320 Family aircraft are in service in China with 16 operators.
There are components produced in China on all Airbus commercial aircraft types. Airbus now has four joint ventures with Chinese partners covering training and support, engineering, final assembly and composite manufacturing, in addition to a number of cooperation projects.
The A320 Family is the world’s best-selling single aisle product line with more than 11,000 orders to date and over 6,200 aircraft delivered.
