The birth of Airbus A320s ✈️😍

In a bit of a daze this morning after a less than ideal sleep wondering if or when I’ll ever see my bag again I made my way to visit Airbus. About 15 years ago I did a factory tour at Boeing in Seattle and after my failed attempt in Toulouse in 2022 it was now time to visit an Airbus factory. It was about an hour on public transport there (mostly bus). I ate 2 croissants, a bottle of coke and a water on the journey there. Perhaps those wines last night gave me a hangover 🤕.

On arrival my passport is checked, headset provided and safety briefing given. We have 2 tour guides (one in English one in german) and 2 minders from Airbus. Photos are strictly prohibited and even getting your phone out will immediately be greeted by the wrath of the minders with a stern telling off (not me, I was well behaved 😇).

On the bus we are taken to the visitor room, which is above a life size cabin mockup of an A350, used for training on installing components and testing new ideas. After a brief video and discussion on the history of Airbus and the Hamburg site, we’re back on the bus and taken to the assembly line. Upstairs I noticed that Qantas (among many other airlines) has an office.

In this building the sections are joined to form the fuselage and the wings and landing gear attached. The guide called it a marriage of parts, after which the plane can move around the plant on its own wheels. A plane is born. From thousands of parts to flying out the door is about a 20 day process.

We keep driving around various parts of the factory for 2.5 hours seeing various stages of manufacture. With Airbus being a European conglomerate, Hamburg makes the middle and rear sections, UK makes the wings, France makes the front section and cockpit and Spain make the stabilisers. Hamburg puts them all together to make a finished A320 family of aircraft.

The final hangers we visited were the cabin finalisation and testing hangers. Originally built for the A380, each hanger now fits 3 A321s! In this I saw a Jetstar A321 tail getting its cabin fitted and some beautify freshly painted Indigo, Delta and Spirit aircraft.

A great little tour with an informative guide perked me up from my slump. Shame no photos but I get that. It’s about protecting the IP and also ensuring no phones or cameras drop onto the spotlessly clean work areas. I took the bus and train back into the city happy that I finally got to see where these amazing planes come from.Læs mere