Wizz Air takes delivery of its first A321neo aircraft assembled in Airbus' final assembly line at an event in Tianjin on June 27, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of Airbus

 
Plane-manufacturer Airbus delivered a jetliner assembled in its Tianjin plant to a European customer for the first time on Tuesday. 
 
The delivered plane is A321neo, and the European customer is Wizz Air, the largest Central and Eastern European low-cost air carrier. 

The aircraft is powered by Pratt & Whitney GTF engines and features 239 seats in a single class configuration. The delivery flight will be powered by a 10 percent blend of sustainable aviation fuel.

Inaugurated in 2008, Airbus' Final Assembly Line (FAL) in Tianjin was the first Airbus commercial aircraft assembly line outside Europe. In the same year, the first aircraft sections arrived on site. Since its first A320 delivery in 2009, Airbus' FAL in Tianjin has delivered more than 600 aircraft over its 14 years in operation.

In November 2021, Airbus announced plans to expand the production capacity of the FAL for A320 series aircraft in Tianjin to A321 aircraft.  

The first A321neo assembled in Airbus Tianjin was delivered in March 2023.

Airbus announced in April that it will open a second assembly line in Tianjin, further expanding its presence in one of the largest aviation markets in the world.

The second assembly line will be put into operation at the end of 2025. 

In an interview with Global Times in April, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said that the company will have ten assembly lines after the finish of the assembly line in Tianjin, of which two are in China; two are in the US, with two in Toulouse, and four in Hamburg. 

Airbus will have a total of 10 final assembly lines around the world, so that it can better achieve the goal of a global production rate of 75 A320 series aircraft per month. And 70 percent of the production will be the A321 series, Faury said. 

As of the end of December 2022, the first assembly line has completed the final assembly of more than 600 A320 series aircraft, with a majority being delivered to Chinese customers, except few for global carriers such as Malaysia's Air Asia.