Europe’s Airbus moved to double capacity in China and strengthen access to the world’s second-largest aviation market by agreeing on Thursday to build a second Chinese assembly line, as domestic travel returns to pre-pandemic levels, reports Reuters. The world’s largest planemaker, which has overtaken Boeing as a supplier to China amid tensions between Washington and Beijing, also got the go-ahead to deliver 160 jets already sold but failed to win new orders during a French state visit.
“The recovery here is quite impressive. We see very strong momentum,” Airbus Chief Executive Guillaume Faury told reporters during his first visit to China since the COVID-19 crisis.
Airbus says China’s traffic will grow by 5.3% annually over the next two decades, outstripping a global average of 3.6%. The France-based group has been assembling its best-selling A320-family planes in Tianjin outside the capital since 2008.