Where is Airbus made?

Airbus is actually a consortium born in 1970 from the merger of French, German, Spanish and British manufacturers, and that heritage shows in its industrial geography. Toulouse, in southwestern France, houses the headquarters and the final assembly line for the A320, A330 and A350, and was also the only plant that assembled the A380 throughout its entire production run. Hamburg, in northern Germany, is the second major European plant and also assembles the A320 family, sharing the workload with Toulouse according to demand.

To get closer to its markets and customers outside Europe, Airbus opened an A320 final assembly line in Tianjin, China, in 2008, and another in Mobile, Alabama, in 2015, which today also assembles the A220, the regional jet Airbus acquired from Bombardier. Both plants assemble nearly complete aircraft rather than building them from scratch: they receive large sections already built in Europe.

The fuselage, wings and other structures are built in specialized plants spread across France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom — the wings for the A320 family and for the A330 and A350, for example, are built in Broughton, Wales, while those for the A220 come from Belfast and China — and they travel to the final assembly line aboard special cargo aircraft, the Belugas, or by ship and road. Only at the end of the process, in Toulouse, Hamburg, Mobile or Tianjin, do these parts become a complete aircraft, a logistics system unique in the aerospace industry. This network also includes the Spanish plants at Getafe and Illescas, which specialize in composite structures and the tail empennage, and the German plants at Bremen and Stade. It is a geography inherited from the division of labor of the original consortium, which Airbus has kept because each plant has built up half a century of specialization.