Airbus gears up for Chinese A350 push
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By Dan Thisdell
As the first A320s assembled at Airbus's Tianjin plant enter service, the airframer is gearing up to push composite component manufacturing for its forthcoming A350 XWB widebody into China.
Plans to procure 5% of the A350 from China are on track, with a ground-breaking ceremony scheduled for 30 June in Harbin, where Airbus and China's AVIC are building a joint-venture factory. That facility will be in operation from around mid-2010 and will start by making elevator parts for A320s, perform A330 work and, eventually, supply composite parts for the A350.
Eric Zanin, Airbus senior vice-president business development and international cooperation, says the Harbin plant's A320 and A330 work will be a "training programme", with A350 composite work - which will initially be done only in Europe - transferred to China when the facility is ready for it.
© Airbus |
Zanin says that particular A350 components to be built in China have been "pre-selected".
The first Chinese-assembled A320 was last week in Tianjin handed over to Sichuan Airlines, which has operated the type since 1995 and put its latest addition into service immediately. Zanin praised Tianjin's work, saying: "The quality is like in Europe."
A second aircraft will be delivered within days, and 11 are to be shipped this year. By the end of 2011, Tianjin will be producing four A320s a month, representing about half of deliveries to China. The rest will be supplied from Toulouse or Hamburg. At current production rates, the site would account for about one-tenth of total A320 output.
Airbus has six Chinese suppliers for its A320 and other types, and Zanin says that the advent of Chinese final assembly does not change their place in the Airbus global supply chain, which feeds all its assembly points.
The exception is A320 wings, which are produced in Broughton in the UK with component parts including some wing boxes and fixed trailing edges shipped from Xi'an Aircraft. A 10-year project to transfer A320 wing assembly to China will culminate in the first full-wing delivery to Tianjin next year, with output ultimately to match its four-a-month aircraft output.
Zanin says the wing exception was being made to avoid the cost of shipping components from China to Broughton, only to ship complete wings back to Tianjin.
Jon Beatty, chief executive of International Aero Engines, which is supplying V2500 powerplants for nine of the 11 A320s to be built in Tianjin this year, echoes Zanin's praise of the quality of work done in China. Impressed with the technical expertise of his Chinese airline customers, he says: "It's been a pleasure to work with them."
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has agreed with Airbus to provide over 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) in financing for up to 70 Tianjin-built A320s over the next five years.
