Airbus has delivered the first A350 from its widebody completion & delivery centre (C&DC) in Tianjin, China. The A350-900 was delivered to China Eastern Airlines, the second-largest Airbus operator in the world, and the largest in Asia, with 413 Airbus aircraft in its fleet, including 349 A320 Family aircraft, 55 A330 Family aircraft and nine A350s.
The wide-body C&DC covers aircraft completion activities including cabin installation, aircraft painting and production flight test, as well as customer flight acceptance and aircraft delivery. The centre is located at the same site as the Tianjin A320 Family Final Assembly Line and the Airbus Tianjin Delivery Centre.
“I’m proud that Airbus successfully extended the capability of the widebody C&DC in Tianjin to the A350, the latest new generation aircraft, at such a difficult time of global aviation,” said George Xu, EVP of Airbus and CEO of Airbus China. “This is a new milestone in the long-term cooperation between China and Airbus, which further demonstrates Airbus’ commitment to the country.”
The Tianjin wide-body C&DC centre was inaugurated in September 2017, initially for A330 completions. In 2019, during a visit to China by Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, signed a ‘Memorandum of Understanding on the Further Development of Industrial Cooperation’ with He Lifeng, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China, and Guillaume Faury, CEO of Airbus, announcing the C&DC would extend its capability to A350 aircraft.
