The first Airbus A320 plane assembled in the northern China
The first Chinese-built Airbus A320 passed its flight trial and is planned to be delivered to China’s Sichuan Airlines by the end of June. This is the first Airbus built outside of Europe and there are quite a few more planned. Airbus hopes to be producing four A320’s per month by the end of 2011.
Airbus ressures customers of the planes quality, even though it was built in a different location. “This A320 assembled in China unquestionably demonstrated the same quality and performance as those assembled and delivered in Hamburg or Toulouse,” Fernando Alonso, senior vice president at Airbus, said in a statement.
Many analysts see China as a booming airline market. With more and more people being able to afford to fly, air travel has been taking off (yes, pun intended). China is even attempting to build its own airliners, the ARJ-21.
I wonder if these planes will be able to overcome the stigma of being Chinese-built.
I wonder this too Dan. But really most people flying don’t know what kind of plane they are on and don’t care. Much less will they care where it was made.
Now if by some chance one or two of these planes have issues, then that could be a different story.