French PM Inaugurates Final Assembly Line for Airbus A350

French Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, and Airbus President and Chief Executive Officer, Fabrice Brégier, officially inaugurated the 74,000 sqm A350 XWB Final Assembly Line (FAL), in Toulouse, France, on Tuesday morning.

At full production, the FAL will employ some 1,500 people who will build up to ten aircraft a month as from 2018.

“Innovation is deeply rooted in our DNA and this is fully demonstrated on the A350 XWB, the world’s newest, most advanced airliner. Today we honour Roger Béteille, an exceptional aviation pioneer and we name the A350 XWB Final Assembly Line after him, one of our industry’s greatest innovators,” said Fabrice Brégier, Airbus President & CEO.

Guests at the ceremony were able to see the A350 XWB coming to life, with the first two aircraft (the static aircraft and the first flyable aircraft, MSN1) at different stages of final assembly.

The static aircraft, which will be used solely for ground tests, has nearly completed assembly, with a full fuselage, two wings and the vertical tail plane joined. The aircraft will be transferred to the static test hangar at the Toulouse Jean-Luc Lagardère site to be prepared for static tests to start in spring 2013.

The first flyable A350 XWB (MSN1) is also progressing well, with the fuselage already joined. The wing, vertical and horizontal tail plane for MSN1 are inside the FAL and will be joined to the fuselage in early November.

Béteille was one of Airbus’ four founding fathers. He was instrumental in the development of fly by wire flight controls, one of Airbus’ key innovations which has since become the industry standard. Béteille’s was also responsible for the introduction of the world’s first two engine wide-body aircraft, the A300 which performed its first flight 40 years ago.

“It is a great honour for me to have my name associated with this magnificent, state of the art A350 Final Assembly Line,” said Roger Béteille. “Airbus’ success is a concrete example of how European partners working hand in hand can achieve incredible things together and this has been an essential ingredient to becoming the world’s largest and premier aircraft manufacturer.”

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