The Airbus A380 Era Is Over

Airbus has taken another step in phasing out the A380 and evolving the single-aisle program with the opening of a second modernised A320 family final assembly line in Toulouse.

The opening, which takes place inside the former A380 “Jean-Luc Lagardère” facility, is a testament not only to the importance of the A320neo family in the 2020s but also to the direction the planemaker has pivoted toward following the shift away from quad-engined superjumbos.

Inaugurated by CEO Guillaume Fuary, this new line will be central to the planemaker’s efforts to scale its A320neo production to 75 units per month. This push has been a long time in the making, but has been delayed on several occasions.

Airbus not only wants to scale production for its own financial gain, but it knows that with soaring demand for the single-aisle program and deliveries sold out through the 2030s, it needs to start scaling monthly output to keep up.

Farewell A380: Here Comes The A320 Family

This new line sits alongside the first Toulouse A320 family final assembly line that the planemaker brought online some time ago. Both have been carved out of the huge hangar that once housed the largest commercial airplane in the A380 superjumbo.

Now, the building hosts the highly automated lines that are digitally controlled by scale, its most important family, especially amid surging airline demand for the high-capacity A321neo, which accounts for more than 50% of the backlog and has been the best-selling unit for years.

The first Toulouse line has begun deliveries and employs about 700 people. However, for the remainder of this year, the second line will ramp up. It follows in the footsteps of Boeing’s Everett North Line for the 737 MAX, which sees it pivot away from Renton but, more importantly, also scale production.

What was labelled a proud moment also shows that the dwindling life of the A380 within Airbus is coming to a firm close, if it wasn’t already, with production ceasing half a decade ago. This new FAL for the A320neo family is neccesary more than ever as strong market demand pushes the order backlog higher every year.

A Global A320neo Line Created

While the new FAL in Toulouse is one thing, Airbus has, over time, been scaling its FAL globally to provide coverage across many markets most important to the family, supporting faster deliveries, international customers, and better connectivity.

Whether it’s the multiple lines in Hamburg and Toulouse, the critical role of Mobile in Alamba, or the line to Tianjin in China, these markets underpin the planemaker’s ambition to scale its overall A320 family output to 75 aircraft per month.

Recent expansions, especially in China, have paved the way for support for airlines here, as these customers get the planes they need sooner and have jets produced locally, enabling more oversight throughout the process of plane creation and delivery.

While the demise of the A380 was frustrating for Airbus, as its last-ditch sales pushes amounted to nothing, a door closed but another equally opened, and the A320neo family, in particular, became a pivotal focus.

The sheer space in Toulouse has meant that, particularly for the stretched A321neo and the newest derivative, the long-range A321XLR, space has opened up for new FALs to be created to support future production scaling.

As more airlines not only seek to renew their fleets but also to fundamentally grow and expand into new markets and need aircraft to support these efforts, the A320neo family jets, especially the high-capacity A321neo, are central to making that happen.

With more and more lines selling out and availability becoming scarce, an inability to increase monthly output for a sustained period beyond the existing delays would have a disastrous impact on the planemaker’s finances and on customers patiently awaiting their new deliveries.