News
Airbus and China sign new agreements
April 1, 2014, Paris, Fra. - Airbus and China have laid the foundation for taking their fruitful cooperation into the future as relevant agreements have been signed in Paris by Fabrice Brégier, Airbus President and CEO, and the Chinese parties, witnessed by the French President Francois Hollande and visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping.
April 1, 2014 By Carey Fredericks
In parallel, China Aviation Supplies Holding Company
(CAS) and Airbus have also signed a General Terms Agreement (GTA) for
the purchase of a total of 70 Airbus aircraft.
According to the agreements, Airbus will strengthen
its mutually beneficial cooperation with Chinese aviation industry in
various fields, which include promoting Tianjin as an Asian Centre for
Airbus and upgrading industrial cooperation in both scale and level.
Airbus and its Chinese partners Tianjin Free Trade
Zone and Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), have agreed to
extend the successful Joint Venture to assemble A320 Family aircraft in
China (FALC project) for an additional 10 years. The “phase II” will
cover the period from 2016 to 2025, expand deliveries to the whole Asian
region and include final assembly of the A320neo Family from 2017
onwards. During Phase II, capabilities of the Tianjin Final Assembly
Line will be extended.
Airbus and the Chinese parties will jointly invite
more major component suppliers to develop industrial projects in
Tianjin, in order to support the development of the FALC and the
formation of a competitive supply chain.
To accommodate the strong growth of the Chinese
aviation, which is growing much faster than the world average, and to
ensure its sustainability, the future partnership is also designed to
focus on alleviating these challenges by launching two other areas of
cooperation; supporting the CAAC with the latest state of the art Air
Traffic Management (ATM) in order to boost the capacity of Chinese
airspace, and driving research into regional sustainable jetfuel and
other initiatives in order to reduce the Chinese aviation environmental
footprint.
The two parties will also develop cooperation
activities on Airbus wide-body programmes. Airbus and relevant Chinese
parties will work towards demonstrating the interest of setting up a
wide-body aircraft completion centre in China, which includes
cooperation on wide-body cabin interiors with AVIC.
Among the total of 70 Airbus aircraft ordered by
CAS, there are 43 A320 Family aircraft and 27 A330 aircraft, reflecting
the strong demand of Chinese airlines in all segments of the market,
including domestic, low cost, regional and international long haul
markets.
“We are going to celebrate 30 years of successful
cooperation with our Chinese partners next year and I am proud that
today we are strengthening the foundation for extending our successful
cooperation into the future,” said Fabrice Bregier, Airbus President and
CEO. “Our partnership with China, the mutual benefits we’ve explored,
have been instrumental in furthering our global strategy, and we are
honoured to have China as an essential pillar in our global setup. We
are looking forward to providing top performing aircraft from our
Chinese assembly lines for many years to come.”
