Airbus expects to sell nearly 300 A380 superjumbos in China in the next 20 years, for international and domestic routes.
"There's potential obviously in a country this size. Flights from Beijing to Shanghai are always full and airlines are already using the A330 to serve such routes," says Airbus China president Laurence Barron.
He says the single-aisle A320 will, however, remain Airbus's focus in China. There are 320 orders for the narrowbody jet in mainland China.
The Airbus Tianjin A320 final assembly line has delivered nine aircraft so far this year, and expects to deliver two more to Hainan Airlines subsidiary Deer Jet by year-end.
Barron adds that all nine aircraft have had a dispatch reliability of 100%, and he expects the final assembly line to turn profitable by 2012.
Next year, he says, Airbus expects to deliver almost 100 aircraft in China, compared with 80 this year. "We are cautiously optimistic for 2010. International and freight traffic has improved, and seems to have bottomed out," he says.
Source: Flight International
