Airbus has started transporting the first aircraft segments to the new single-aisle assembly line in Tianjin in northern China.

The assembly process of the first aircraft, which is for Sichuan Airlines, will start in August of this year.

Delivery of the aircraft is scheduled for the first half of 2009.

Getting the partially assembled parts there was a complex process. Six jigs loaded with parts for an A320, coming from the Airbus production sites in Europe, left from Hamburg on a barge. It carried the forward and rear fuselage section, a pair of wings, the horizontal and vertical tailplane and engine pylons.

The barge is transporting these segments to the nearby container terminal at Hamburg harbor.

There they will then be transferred onto a commercial container ship bound for Tianjin.

Amazingly, the overall transportation to China will last less than one month.

The Chinese final assembly line will mainly produce aircraft for the Chinese market, where Airbus expects the passenger traffic to grow fivefold in the next 20 years, causing a demand of a total of 2,670 new passenger aircraft. The top picture is a 320 in Tianjin. The one on the left is at the signing of the agreement last year.
Source: CargoNews Asia

Lufthansa’s Cargo unit has established a joint venture company for the handling of airfreight in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin with Tianjin Airport Hua Yu Air Cargo Terminal (HYACT).

Lufthansa Cargo holds 46% in HYACT, Taiwanese investor Hwa-Hsia International Holding Ltd has 49% and Tianjin Airport International Logistics Joint Stock holds 5%.

Lufthansa Cargo head Carsten Spohr said in a statement, ‘Tianjin will develop into the most important airfreight hub in the north of China within the next few years’.

In China, Lufthansa Cargo already holds 29% in Shanghai Pudong International Airport Cargo Terminal, 50% in the International Cargo Centre Shenzhen, as well as 25% in freight company Jade Cargo International.

Source: Forbes

Tianjin is seriously working at becoming one of the major commercial centers of China. For that it need a big airport. So it will raise the annual capacity of its new airport to 40 million passengers by 2020, four times the amount it will be able to handle when it opens on the due date in March.

Qi Ronglin, deputy director of Tianjin’s Municipal Commission of Communications said the airfield will likely reach this figure ahead of schedule.

Mayor Dai Xianglong, a former central bank governor, has expanded Tianjin’s port, won investment from overseas companies including Airbus SAS and plans to make the city the first in China where residents can buy Hong Kong-listed stock. The new airfield would compare with Beijing Capital, Asia’s second- busiest, which handled 48.7 million passengers last year. The mayor, plainly, is not with ambition for his city.

Qi Ronglin said, ‘Tianjin has the potential to become a traffic hub in northern China. The combined advantages in aviation and shipping traffic will help boost the city’s economy.’

The RMB3 billion(US$402 million) first phase of Tianjin’s airport will have a capacity of 10 million passengers a year. A second phase due to be completed by 2010, will add a second runway and double the capacity to 20 million.

Airbus will also use the airport to test A320s made in the city. The planemaker plans to begin deliveries from the assembly plant, its first outside Europe, in 2009.

Tianjin’s existing airport will be turned into an all-cargo facility.

The city’s seaport, northern China’s busiest, handles about half of China’s auto imports. It plans to raise its annual container volume about 70% to 12 million by 2010 from an expected 7 million this year.

A total of RMB36.7 billion will be spent expanding Tianjin port in the five years ending 2010, according to the port operator’s Web site.
Source: Bloomberg

Europe’s aircraft manufacturer Airbus will shift the final assembly of modern commercial airliners to China to secure itself a larger share of the country’s rapidly growing and already worldwide second-largest air traffic market.

A joint venture agreement has been signed in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People with Germany’s Minister of Economy, Michael Glos in attendance.

The largest challenge for Airbus will be the training of local workers for the company’s first final assembly plant outside of Europe, which is currently being built in the port city of Tianjin, about 100 kilometers south-east of Beijing.

A project manager said with considerable truth, ‘Technically, we are starting out at ground zero’.

Some 500 Chinese employees will have to be selected, primarily mechanics, electricians, spray painters and logistics personnel. About 200 of them have already begun their training including intensive English-language lessons.

Lufthansa’s technical department will later provide aeronautics-specific training, which is to be conducted at Tianjin’s German-Chinese Vocational Training Centre.

The Chinese workers also will have to spend between 6 months and a whole year at the Airbus plants in Hamburg and Toulouse to gain practical experience alongside their European colleagues.

Production in Tianjin is planned to start a little more than one year from now, in August 2008, and 120 European employees will temporarily move to China to facilitate that launch.

The plant, adjacent to Tianjin’s airport, will be an exact replica of Hamburg’s modern final assembly facility, which specializes in short- and medium-range aircraft.

The first plane is not expected to roll off the assembly line before mid-2009, but once started, four aircraft of the model A320 should be finished each month, half the current output of the Hamburg plant.

Airbus parts will continue to be entirely produced in Hamburg, then shipped to China where only the final assembly will take place, which accounts for only 5% of the total value in terms of material and man hours.

Airbus continues to remain the preferred choice over Boeing in China.
Source: M and C

Zhang Hongbiao, general manager of China Aviation Industry has confirmed that European aircraft manufacturer Airbus will hold a majority 51% stake in the new Tianjin assembly facility. The remaining 49% will be held by an entity called Tianjin Zhongtian Aviation Industry Investment.

The Chinese company’s registered capital of RMB300 million ($39 million) includes RMB180 million from Tianjin Bonded Zone Investment.

The joint-venture aircraft assembly facility will begin operating early in 2009. By 2011 it will be producing four A320 planes a month. Total investment in the project is estimated at around RMB10 billion ($1.3 billion).
Source: China Daily