The on-target delivery of 11 A320 Family aircraft this year from Airbus’ new Tianjin, China final assembly line marks another milestone in the company’s internationalisation – which is a key element for its future evolution.

Tianjin symbolises the more global development, production and outsourcing system being established by Airbus – providing multiple benefits that include harnessing the skills and capabilities of a culturally-diverse talent base; contributing to increased cost-effectiveness; and generating an even closer presence to the company’s worldwide customers and operators.

Activity at the Tianjin final assembly line began in August 2008, and the facility has since met its objectives of smoothly ramping up the production rate while delivering to Airbus’ high level of quality.

Its first Chinese-assembled aircraft was an A320 provided to Sichuan Airlines via Dragon Aviation Leasing in June 2009. In the months since then, five other A320s and five A319s assembled at Tianjin have been delivered to customers and are now in operation with Sichuan Airlines, Deer Air, Shenzhen Airlines and China Eastern Airlines.

Tianjin joins the existing A320 final assembly lines in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany – and it is the initial such facility to be located outside Europe. The production rate at Tianjin will be ramped up to four aircraft per month by the end of 2011.

Other Airbus international operations created outside of the company’s founding European nations include a Russian engineering centre in Moscow, which handles work packages across company product lines from the A320 Family to the A350 XWB and A380; a pair of U.S. engineering sites in Wichita, Kansas and Mobile, Alabama, which support cabin interior and cargo programs, along with wing engineering activity on a range of Airbus widebody jetliners; and a Bangalore, India engineering centre that is focussed on developing advanced capabilities in the areas of modelling and simulation.

Source and picture: Airbus