By sea and land to the assembly line

Airbus SAS will deliver 36 A380 planes, the largest passenger aircraft in the world, in 2014. It produces three jumbos each month.

There was an order backlog of 192 planes for the A380 at the end of May. As of that date, Airbus had received 324 orders for the A380 and achieved 132 deliveries.

To deliver the planes on time, the European airplane manufacturer shares the work across four main sites in Europe.

But Airbus has to resolve the problem of getting all the parts in one place, as major components such as wings are too large for traditional cargo planes.

For the A380, Airbus is for the first time using cargo ships, and it runs a fleet of five vessels, said Arnaud Cazeneuve, surface transportation operations manager of Airbus.

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It takes 13 days to transport the main parts of the aircraft from Hamburg in Germany, Puerto Real in Spain, Broughton in the United Kingdom and Saint Nazaire in France to the assembly line in Toulouse, the headquarters of Airbus in France.

"It's different from carrying other kinds of goods. The crew have to be very careful in transporting the aircraft parts, especially when accelerating," said Thomas Gheerbrant, captain of the City of Hamburg, one of the five vessels.

The nine-deck vessel has a maximum capacity of 5,000 metric tons. It sails the route three times a month at a speed of 25 to 35 kilometers per hour.

Gheerbrant's ship transports two sections of the fuselage of the jumbo from Hamburg to the port of Pauillac, France. Then the parts move to smaller ships, which can sail in the River Garonne.

The last stage of the journey is by truck from Langon to Toulouse. It takes three nights, stopping at four points on the way. The trucks can travel only after 10 pm to avoid causing traffic jams. It is not unusual to see tourists flock into villages outside Toulouse to watch the jumbo components going through the narrow road.

The parts are gathered in the factory after midnight for final assembly.

Airbus has forecast that the Chinese mainland will need 205 new very large aircraft, such as the A380, in the next 20 years. The entire market will amount to 3,992 new aircraft during the period.

The only fleet of A380s operating in China is five aircraft operated by China Southern Airlines Co Ltd.

To make a profit flying this plane, a carrier must run it between the largest cities, analysts said.

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