China is playing an increasingly more important role in the industry cooperation with Toulouse-based airplane manufacturer Airbus, as more companies are becoming involved in the design of its latest model.
China has participated in the components design and manufacturing of the A350 XWB, said Eric Chen, Airbus China President & CEO, at a media briefing Thursday in Beijing, as "every 100 A350 XWB is sold out, there will be five made in China."
The company viewed the A350 project the one Chinese engineers are most involved in, from technology and range, and a lot of intellectual property rights have been adopted in the component design.
Francois Mery, Airbus China COO, said at the media briefing that the A350 project brings two joint ventures, one is Airbus (Beijing) Engineering Center, between Airbus and it partner Aviation Industry Corporation of China participating in the program's development, involving specific design work for the airframe, and the second one is Harbin Hefei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Center.
So far, Airbus has received 810 firm orders for the A350 XWB from 43 customers worldwide, including China Eastern ordering 20 A350-900 aircraft in April this year and Air China ordering 10 A350-900s, with the first delivery scheduled in 2017.
Airbus said that it will start its A350 XWB China tour with a debut at Zhuhai Airshow in November. The 11-day trip will display the model at more cities including Haikou, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Featuring a carbon-fiber livery to reflect its primary construction from advanced composite materials, the aircraft (MSN2) is one of Airbus' fleet of five A350-900 test aircraft and one of two with a fully functional cabin configuration, including 42 business class and 210 economy class seats.
The A330 wide body delivery center in Tianjin plant is slated to go in production in the third quarter of next year and produce two aircraft per month at the end of 2018. The group plans to reach a cooperation volume of $1 billion with Chinese partners by 2020.
