Airbus has delivered the first aircraft assembled at its new Final Assembly Line in Tianjin, marking another major step in the company’s manufacturing presence in China.
China Eastern Airlines received the first Airbus A320neo produced at the new facility on Wednesday. The airline operates the largest Airbus fleet among airlines on the Chinese mainland and was also the customer for China’s first Airbus aircraft, an A310 delivered in 1985.
Airbus’ original Tianjin assembly line began operations in 2008 and has since assembled and delivered around 800 A320-family aircraft. The new second line is expected to increase production capacity and support growing demand from China and other markets.
With the addition of the new Tianjin line, Airbus now operates 10 final assembly lines worldwide — four in Hamburg, two in Toulouse, two in Mobile and two in Tianjin.
China is expected to remain one of the world’s largest aviation markets. Airbus forecasts that Chinese airlines will require around 8,830 new passenger aircraft over the next 20 years, representing more than one-fifth of the 42,060 aircraft forecast to be needed globally.
The latest delivery highlights the growing scale of Airbus’ manufacturing footprint in China and the importance of the Chinese market to the global commercial aviation industry.
