@Airbus Airbus has begun the final assembly of the first A320-neo at its Final Assembly Line (FAL) in Toulouse.

The European aerospace giant is joining up the forward and aft fuselage sections, which recently arrived from St Nazaire and Hamburg respectively.

Once this phase is completed, the next stage is the wing-to-fuselage ‘join-up’. Overall, it takes around one month to complete the final assembly of an A320 Family aircraft. On average, one of these aircraft leaves one of the three A320 Family FALs in Toulouse, Hamburg or Tianjin every 7hr.

The first flight of the A320-neo will take place in the fourth quarter of this year, with the first delivery the following autumn. To date, more than 2,600 orders have been
received from 50 customers.