Airbus has started shipping the first aircraft sections to its new assembly line in Tianjin, China

Airbus has started shipping the first aircraft sections to its new assembly line in Tianjin, China, which is due to start operations in August. In a statement, the plane maker announced that “sections of the mid-haul A320 coming from Airbus’s European production sites left the Hamburg factory on a ship carrying front and rear parts of the fuselage, wings, horizontal and vertical stabilisers as well as engine housings”. The group detailed that transport should last “less than a month”. Cited in the statement, Alain Flourens, A320 programme manager, said training of the Chinese workers in Toulouse and Hamburg “went very well”. He commented, “Transportation of these aircraft sub-assemblies marks another important milestone for our assembly line in China”. Delivery of the first made-in- China A320 to Sichuan Airlines is scheduled for the first half of 2009, said Airbus. The press largely comments that, by building this production line in China, Airbus lifts its chances to grab a lion’s share of the fast-growing local aviation market. The plane maker forecasts that China will order some 1,600 new aircraft by 2022 and hopes to win at least 50% of these orders. Hamburger Abendblatt highlights that Airbus claimed that European jobs were not under threat as some production goes to China. On the contrary, says the plane maker, Europe’s domestic economy will gain from the new upcoming division of work between Europe and China. Still, German trade unions are concerned about the supply of technological know-how to China. AFP (24/06), Bloomberg (24/06), Le Figaro Economie, Hamburger Abendblatt, Handelsblatt, Negocio