Airbus A320 Final Assembly Line Asia (FALA) in Tianjin. (Courtesy of Airbus China)
BEIJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Airbus is expected to ramp up the production rate of the A320 Final Assembly Line Asia (FALA) in northern China's Tianjin to six airplanes per month by early 2020, according to Airbus China Tuesday.
The Airbus A320 FALA in Tianjin is now capable of conducting the final assembly of the A320 family single-aisle airplanes, including the latest model A320neo, Airbus China said.
The final assembly line has gradually ramped up since last year. To date, its production rate is around five A320 family airplanes per month.
In 2008, a joint venture of the A320 final assembly line was set up in Tianjin by Airbus and Chinese partners to meet surging demand from Chinese customers.
It is the third single-aisle aircraft final assembly line location of Airbus and first outside Europe.
In June 2009, the Airbus A320 FALA in Tianjin delivered its first aircraft.
Besides the A320 FALA, Airbus' A330 Family Completion and Delivery Center in Tianjin delivered the first aircraft in September 2017.
In 2018, Airbus delivered a total of 191 airplanes to Chinese customers.
To date, there are over 1,750 Airbus airplanes serving the Chinese market.
China is the largest single-country market for Airbus, representing about one-quarter of its global sales.
China is also an important industrial cooperation partner of Airbus. In 2017, the total value of industrial cooperation between Airbus and the Chinese aviation industry reached 641 million U.S. dollars in 2017.
"We are moving faster to meet the target of making the total value of China-Airbus industrial cooperation to reach one billion dollars by 2020," said Francois Mery, Airbus Commercial Aircraft China COO.
China is now the world's second-largest civil aviation market and is expected to become the largest in mid-2020, according to the International Air Transport Association. Enditem
