Parts of the Airbus A320 and A321 fuselage, airframes and wings are being assembled at the Airbus assembly plant in Tianjin, China. © Time-Snaps
Airbus A320 and A321 are being assembled at the Airbus factory in Tianjin, China. Airbus China opened its Beijing office in 1990. It now employs more than 270 people – the majority of whom are Chinese nationals – and operates a string of local customer support offices to provide ready assistance to airlines. The Airbus Beijing training centre was set up jointly with the China Aviation Supplies Import & Export Corporation in 1998, and is the most modern such facility in the country – containing two full simulators, one for the A320 Family and one for the A330/A340 Family. The centre has trained thousands of maintenance engineers, cabin crew and pilots, many of whom come from outside China. Nearby is the Airbus customer support centre, which stocks approximately 25,000 spare parts available for dispatch to airlines in the Asia-Pacific region and was the first organisation in China to earn EN9100 approval. In addition, more than 20 European and American vendors supporting Airbus customers operate out of the centre, which also has a dedicated avionics repair workshop. The first Airbus final assembly line to operate outside of Europe, located in Tianjin, officially opened on 28 September 2008. This production site for A320 Family aircraft is a joint venture between Airbus and a Chinese consortium of Tianjin Free Trade Zone (TJFTZ) and China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC). On 18 May 2009, the facility marked a milestone when the Chinese final assembly line's first jetliner - an A320 - completed its maiden flight, taking off from Tianjin International Airport for a 4 hr. 14 min. airborne evaluation. This same A320 was delivered on 23 June 2009 to Dragon Aviation Leasing for operation by Chengu-based carrier Sichuan Airlines, marking the first customer handover of an Airbus jetliner produced outside Europe.
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