Airbus in Germany

Hamburg, the headquarters of Airbus Deutschland and the largest site in Germany, employs more than 10,000 people and plays a decisive role in the development and engineering of all Airbus aircraft. Final assembly takes place here for three of the A320 Family’s four members: the A318, A319 and A321.

As headquarters for Airbus’ Centre of Excellence - Fuselage and Cabin, Hamburg is the site where the A300/A310, A320 Family aircraft, and the A380 are fitted with their cabin interiors and painted for final delivery. Hamburg also is home to Airbus’ A380 major component assembly hall, which houses the structural assembly and the fitting-with equipment of the forward and complete rear fuselage sections for this new-generation aircraft.

In addition, final acceptance and delivery of A380s for customers in Europe and the Middle East takes place in Hamburg.

Hamburg's many years of manufacturing experience goes into fuselage structural assembly and systems installation, making it part of the Centre of Excellence Fuselage and Cabin. Hamburg produces complete fuselage sections for the A380, which are shipped to France on a specially-built roll-on, roll-off ferry. Other key activities in Hamburg include a large spares centre – which holds some 120,000 proprietary parts for customers from around the world, and A320 Family maintenance training facilities and procurement.

More than 3,100 persons are employed at Bremen, the second largest Airbus site in Germany. As part of the Centre of Excellence - Wing/Pylon, Bremen is responsible for the design and manufacture of high-lift systems for the wings of Airbus aircraft. The entire process chain for the high-lift elements is established here, including the project office, technology engineering, flight physics, system engineering, structure development, verification tests, structural assembly, wing equipping and ultimate delivery to the final assembly line. In addition, Bremen manufactures sheet metal parts like clips and thrust crests for all Airbus aircraft as part of the Centre of Excellence - Fuselage and Cabin.

The vertical tail planes for all Airbus aircraft are produced at Stade – one of the world's leading centres in the use of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP), the weight-saving composite material which Airbus has increasingly incorporated into its aircraft, including the vertical tail plane. Stade employs nearly 1,500 people, and also produces other components from CFRP, such as flaps for single-aisle A320 aircraft, and spoilers for the widebody A330 and A340. The pressure bulkheads for the A330, A340 and A380 are also part of Stade’s production responsibilities.

A350 XWB components produced at Stade include this new-generation widebody aircraft’s upper wing shell – which represents the largest integrated carbon fibre component ever made by Airbus – along with its vertical tail plane and CFRP fuselage shells. Approximately 500 people will build A350 XWB components at the Stade facility when production reaches full capacity.

With a workforce of some 350 employees, the Airbus site at Buxtehude forms part of the Centre of Excellence - Fuselage and Cabin. All the electronic communications and cabin management systems needed by both crew and passengers are designed and produced at this site. These include the cabin intercommunication data system used to control cabin functions, and the passenger service units for passenger seating system controls.

KID-SYSTEME GmbH – an Airbus subsidiary based at Buxtehude that supplies cabin intercom and data systems technology – creates systems for in-seat power supply and cabin connectivity. The KID-SYSTEME facility concentrates on conception and production of the internationally-certified SKYpower power supply system – which is directly integrated into the passenger seat and generates the power needed to operate laptops and personal electronic devices aboard aircraft. KID-SYSTEME GmbH has also developed and integrated the A380’s entire lighting system.