French Aerospace company, Airbus, has signed on Friday new cooperation agreements with China aviation industry, as a part of a partnership between the two parties.
The agreement was cosigned with the presence of Chinese President, Xi Jinping, French President, Emmanuel Macron, and Airbus CEO, Guillaume Faury, with Aviation Industry Corporation of China Ltd.
The signed agreement is set to expand A320F Family final assembly capacity with a second line at its Tianjin site, and will contribute to the rate objective of 75 aircraft of Airbus per month by 2026.
Airbus also signed General Terms of Agreement (GTA) with the China Aviation Supplies Holding Company (CAS), which covers the purchase of 160 Airbus commercial aircraft. The GTA includes announcements for 150 A320 Family aircraft and 10 a350-900 widebody aircraft orders.
Airbus and the China National Aviation Fuel Group (CNAF) signed an MoU to reinforce Chinese-European cooperation on production, competitive application and common standards formulation for Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), as a part of its sustainability strategy.
Airbus and CNAF signed a contract in September 2022 to support commercial and delivery flights in Chia to be operated with SAF.
The cooperation agreement aims boost the SAF supply chain, by diversifying the source and enhancing SAF production to reach a 10 percent use of SAF by 2030.
“We are honored to continue our long-standing cooperation by supporting China’s civil aviation growth with our leading families of aircraft,” said Airbus CEO, Guillaume Faury.
Faury added that this “underpins the positive recovery momentum and prosperous outlook for the Chinese aviation market and the desire to grow sustainably with Airbus’ latest generation, eco-efficient aircraft.”
China’s air traffic is predicted to grow by 5.3 percent in the next 20 years, which is faster than the global average of 3.6 percent, leading to a demand for 8,420 passenger and freighter aircrafts by 2041, 20 percent of the total global demand.
Airbus entered the Chinese in 1985, with its delivery of an A310 to China Eastern Airlines, and by the end of the first quarter of 2023, Airbus aircrafts in service fleet in China reached 50 percent of the market.
Airbus currently has four A320 Family final assembly sites worldwide; Hamburg in Germany, Toulouse in France, Mobile in the U.S. and Tianjin in China. The Tianjin Final Assembly Line (FAL Asia) started operating in 2008 and has assembled 600 A320 Family aircraft since then.
