[photopress:air_airbus_Tinajin_1.jpg,full,alignright]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.
[photopress:air_airbus_Tianjin2.jpg,full,alignleft] 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
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