BEIJING/PARIS (Reuters) -Airbus said on Wednesday it had opened a second assembly line in China, increasing manufacturing capacity for its best-selling A320neo family of single-aisle jets.
The new line completes a jigsaw of 10 global final assembly lines that Airbus says will be involved in a production drive, including two each in the U.S. and China.
The second Chinese line in the port city of Tianjin near Beijing is set to be fully operational in early 2026, the European planemaker said in a statement.
Its inauguration comes just over a week after Airbus opened a second final assembly line in Mobile, Alabama.
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said the second Tianjin production line would give the planemaker the “flexibility and capacity we need to reach our target of 75 A320-family aircraft per month by 2027,” as he reiterated a global production goal.
Analysts estimate Airbus is currently producing about 60 of the single-aisle planes per month. The A320neo family competes against Boeing’s 737 MAX and Chinese planemaker COMAC’s C919 models, which have lower production rates.
Faury attended an opening ceremony at the Tianjin factory that featured giant European Union and Chinese flags behind the speakers.
A day earlier, Faury met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, the ministry said in a statement.
During the meeting, Wang stressed that rising economic fragmentation and unilateral, protectionist moves were unsettling global trade and adding instability and uncertainty, the ministry said on Wednesday.
Airbus committed to expanding its presence in China and contributing to China-France and China-Europe trade ties, the ministry added. Airbus declined to comment on details of the meeting.
Industry sources said this month that the back-to-back line-opening ceremonies in Mobile and Tianjin were being designed to avoid falling foul of a tricky trade climate between China and the United States.
Since Airbus first announced the overseas expansion plans in 2022 and 2023, Washington and Beijing have plunged into a months-long trade war, leaving Airbus and some other European companies anxious to avoid offending either trade power.
(Reporting by Sophie Yu in Beijing and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Jamie Freed)
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