Alenia Aerospazio, a Finmeccanica company, has signed an agreement with Airbus to participate in the A380 aircraft project, Airbus's largest strategic investment for the next 20 years.
Alenia's industrial role will be the design and production of a fully fitted section of the central fuselage in 3 pieces, as well as related engineering work.
The value of the parts, which will be produced between 2002 and 2020, is around EUR 2.78 bn (USD 2.5 bn), or around 4% of the value of the air-frame. Once on-stream, production will involve over 1,000 workers a year (including work outsourced to many small and medium-sized businesses), while the related engineering work, to be carried out over the next five years until 2006, will involve an average of 500 workers a year.
The importance of the project and its relevance to many disciplines and technologies will allow Alenia to make optimum use of its technology centres, which are mostly situated in the Naples area, and to fully exploit its manufacturing capacity, innovative automated production systems and high value-added systems capacity.
The Airbus A380 is a new family of very high-capacity double fuselage aircraft. The basic version of the aeroplane will carry 550 passengers, and is expected to enter into service in 2006.
The A380 family has great development potential, as several versions of varying capacity (from 480 to 650 passengers), flight autonomy, configuration (passengers, cargo and "combi") and internal layout will be developed.
Airbus launched the A380 programme in December 2000. To date 82 firm orders (to which may shortly be added the 15 aircraft Lufthansa has announced it intends to buy), and 49 options have been received from nine airlines. According to market forecasts, around 700 A380s, worth a total of EUR 145 bn (USD 130 bn) will be delivered in 20 years.
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Alenia Aerospazio Signs Agreement With Airbus For The A380 Programme
