Xinhua Engineers and technicians view the aircraft segments of A320 on Friday, July 25, 2008. The first aircraft segments of Airbus has arrived in A320 assembly plant in Tianjin, 110 kilometers east of Beijing on the same day. The segments contains the forward and rear fuselage section, a pair of wings, the horizontal and vertical tailplane and engine pylons.

The first aircraft segments for a planned Airbus A320 arrived in the new single-aisle assembly line in Tianjin on Friday from the Airbus production sites in Europe, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The segments include the forward and rear fuselage section, a pair of wings, the horizontal and vertical tailplane and engine pylons.

The assembly process of the first aircraft, which is for Sichuan Airlines, will start in August 2008. Delivery of the aircraft is scheduled for the first half of 2009. It hopes to begin producing four A320 planes a month by 2011.

Meanwhile, a second runway, which will serve A320 assembly plant in the city, will be built by Tianjin Binhai International Airport. According to a statement on the website of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the total investment in the project is seen at 1.454 billion yuan(US$213.824 million).

Insiders say that the final assembly line in China is an important milestone on Airbus' way to become a global company.

The Chinese final assembly line will mainly produce aircraft for the Chinese market, where Airbus expects the passenger traffic to grow fivefold in the next 20 years, causing a demand of a total of 2,670 new passenger aircraft.