Paris (AFP)

Airbus will install an additional assembly line in Toulouse to produce its A321 and respond to the commercial success of this single-aisle aircraft, on the production site of the A380 whose production will end in 2021.

This assembly line will be added to that dedicated to the A321 located in Hamburg and which faces a difficult ramp-up due to the complexity of the assembly of the different versions of the A321 compared to its little brother. A320. It will be operational "by mid-2022" and will employ 500 people.

"The Jean-Luc Lagardère factory, current assembly site of the A380 in Toulouse, will house an A321 chain equipped with the latest digital technologies, as part of a modernization of the production system of the A320 in Toulouse", Airbus said in a statement.

The aircraft manufacturer announced in February 2019 the end of its giant air program, the A380, nine of which remain to be delivered by 2021.

The new final assembly line (FAL) will offer "greater flexibility for the production of the A321, while maintaining a stable level of the overall industrial capacity of the single-aisle aircraft in Toulouse", specifies the aircraft manufacturer.

The A321 in its different variants now represents 40% of the order book of the A320 single-aisle family (A319neo, A320 neo and A321neo), which amounted at the end of December to 6,000 aircraft, it was reported at Airbus .

"We are enjoying strong demand which is reaching unprecedented levels for our leading A320neo family, in particular its long-haul (LR) and very long-haul (XLR) A321 derivatives", explains Michael Schoellhorn, chief operating officer of 'Airbus (COO), cited in the press release.

- Eight production lines -

This latest model makes it possible to travel up to 8,700 kilometers in nine hours, thanks to larger tanks, and has met with great commercial success since the announcement of its launch in June.

The A321 XLR, whose deliveries will start in 2023, will make it possible to operate with a single-aisle less frequented connections which until now could only be by large long-haul less profitable long-haul aircraft.

"In order to optimize the industrial flow, we decided to increase our overall production capacity and flexibility for the A321, but also to establish a new generation final assembly line in Toulouse," adds Michael Schoellhorn.

The CFE-CGC "sees in the allocation of this new FAL A321 the assurance of the sustainability of the Toulouse industrial site", welcomed in a press release the union which is delighted with "the recognition of capacity and competitiveness of the site".

According to Airbus, "the Toulouse site was selected for several reasons: overall competitiveness, time to market, investment cost, floor space and available resources".

Currently, the A321 is only produced in Hamburg, on a dedicated FAL, as well as in the group's American factory in Mobile.

Toulouse already has two final assembly lines (FAL) for the A320, dating from the 1980s, which will be modernized. It also has FALs for this family of single-aisle aircraft in northern Germany in Hamburg (4), in the southern United States in Mobile (1), and in Tianjin in China (1).

The aircraft manufacturer has experienced production delays linked to the ramp-up of production of the A321 in the ACF version - allowing a more flexible configuration of the cabins - and which "remains ambitious", argued Airbus.

Its executive president Guillaume Faury recently recognized that it was "very difficult" to catch up. However, the aircraft manufacturer expects a monthly production of 63 single-aisle A320 family by 2021.

Airbus delivered 863 aircraft in 2019, the highest total in its history, including 642 of the A320 family. The orders of its competitor Boeing ended in the red (deficit of 87 net aircraft), a first for decades, due to the crisis of the 737 MAX, the competitor of the A320 nailed to the ground since mid-March after two close accidents having killed 346 people.

© 2020 AFP