A Look Inside the Airbus Factory Revolutionizing the World of Airplanes

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.

This is the most important moment in the life of an airliner: when the new owner signs for it and picks it up, much like a driver picking up a new car from a dealer.

The aircraft in question is an Airbus A321neo, and it is parked at Hamburg-Finkenwerder, the German city’s second airport, which Airbus uses for testing, logistics, and delivery of airplanes to customers. Gathered around the plane are pilots and cabin crew, as well as two executives from Wizz Air, the low-cost Hungarian airline that is about to take delivery of it.

Airlines and manufacturers never disclose how much they pay for individual aircraft—partly because prices depend on many factors, including the number of planes purchased and the commercial history of each individual airline—but buying a plane is never cheap. The base price of a single Airbus A321neo is estimated to be around $110 million.

This particular plane, registered by Wizz Air as H9-WNM, was produced in Airbus’s Hamburg factory in just over a year. The site is one of the company’s four production centers, the others being in Toulouse, France; Mobile, Alabama; and Tianjin, China. Known as final assembly lines (FAL), these giant workshops are where a plane’s structural parts, on-board electronics, hydraulic and mechanical components, and other pieces all come together.

The final arming process of an Airbus A320neo in Hamburg.Photograph: Antonio Dini

But before these components reach the FAL, they need to be manufactured. Some are made internally by Airbus, others by third parties, and together making them involves dozens of factories and centers around the globe. Then there is the formidable logistical challenge of bringing them all together. This complex ballet involves shipments by boat, train, road, and air, with a small fleet of special transport planes—known as Belugas—playing a key role. These aircraft, with their prodigious girth that makes them resemble beluga whales, were created by Airbus to move large components such as fuselages from one production center to another.