Six countries are involved in building every Airbus A320

The Airbus A320 family including the newer A320neo are currently the most popular narrowbody aircraft in the world today. In fact in October 2019, the A320 surpassed the Boeing 737 in number of orders. In the Philippines, almost all airlines that use jets utilize the A320 family, from the A319 until the A321neo. Did you know that six countries are involved in building every Airbus A320? Well, its time to look into how the Airbus A320 family are built and what countries are involved.

Under the A320 family are different variants and these are the common A320, the smaller A319, the longer A321, and the shortest A318 also known as the “Baby Bus”. There are also two series, the Current Engine Option (CEO) and the New Engine Option (NEO) series. The NEO series are the ones currently selling now.

Four factories and six countries in the building of an Airbus A320

To address the growing requirements of customers and the market, Airbus has placed up factories in Toulouse, Hamburg, Alabama USA, Tianjin China. Toulouse is responsible for A320s; Hamburg for A318s, A319s, and A321s; Alabama for A319s, A320s, and A321s; and Tianjin for A319s and A320s.

Six countries are involved in building every Airbus A320 — Airbus

The fuselage arrive at the assembly plants at Toulouse and Hamburg via Beluga aircraft, Tianjn and Alabama via container ships. The forward section is built in France and the rest of the fuselage is built in Germany. Once the two sections are joined at station 41, the assembly begins.

From station 41, the fuselage is moved to section 40 or 35 where the wings are assembled to the fuselage. Next are the engine pylons, landing gear, and other main components of the aircraft. Next, the aircraft is moved to a bay where the internal systems like fuel system, hydraulics, other systems, and the cabin are installed and fully tested.

The aircraft then undergoes complete pressure testing, fuel testing, engine installation and testing. It is then painted then will have to undergo final checks before customer delivery and acceptance.

All in all, it takes 8 months to build a single A320 aircraft. However, Airbus had to slow production rate down due to the current covid-19 pandemic which has caused airlines to fall to its knees. Things may ramp up once the airline industry begins to recover.