Production ends on the A300/A310

ATW online

Airbus announced yesterday that production of the A300/A310 family will come to an end in July 2007 with the handover of the last A300-600F currently on order.”It is in Airbus’s best business interest to optimize the use of its resources at this time. . .in response to growing demand from our customers for the newer Airbus products like the A321, the A330/A340 family and the new A350 aircraft,” President and CEO Gustav Humbert explained in a statement.

Production backlog at Jan. 31 numbered 19 aircraft, all of them A300-600Fs for delivery to FedEx Express, UPS and Galaxy Airlines. Airbus has been producing about one aircraft per month during the past two years using approximately 150 employees on the final assembly line. They will be offered new positions within the company.

The airframer has logged a total of 821 orders for the A300/A310 family since the A300–its first aircraft and the first widebody twin–was launched in May 1969. The first A300 entered service with Air France in May 1974. The A310, a shrink of the A300, was launched in 1978 and entered service in April 1983 with Lufthansa and Swissair, featuring the first two-man cockpit on a widebody and introducing digital avionics and CRT displays.