China steered to producing half of twinjet family's rudders within three years

摘要

Airbus aims to manufacture half of its A320 rudders at its Chinese joint venture within three years, increasing production seven-fold by 2014. Hafei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Centre will raise the number of rudder shipsets from three a month to 21 over the period. Airbus disclosed the agreement in Berlin as the airframer hosted a development and co-operation summit. It said Hafei would ramp up its line "progressively" until it accounted for 50% of global A320 rudder production. The manufacturing centre, located in Harbin, has been building A320-family components for 18 months, and is set to produce parts for the A350.