Airbus

Airbus SAS is a division of the multinational Airbus Group SE that manufactures civil aircraft. It is based in Blagnac, France, a suburb of Toulouse, with production and manufacturing facilities mainly in France, Germany, Spain, China, United Kingdom and the United States. The company employs 72,816.

Airbus began as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers, Airbus Industrie. Consolidation of European defence and aerospace companies in 1999 and 2000 allowed the establishment of a simplified joint-stock company in 2001, owned by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) (80%) and BAE Systems (20%). After a protracted sales process BAE sold its shareholding to EADS on 13 October 2006.

Airbus has sixteen key sites in four countries: France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. Final assembly production is based at Toulouse, France; Hamburg, Germany; Seville, Spain, Tianjin, China, and Mobile, United States. Airbus has subsidiaries in the United States, Japan and India.

The company produces and markets the first commercially viable digital fly-by-wire airliner, the Airbus A320, and the world’s largest passenger airliner, the A380. The 10,000th aircraft, an A350, was delivered to Singapore Airlines on 14 October 2016 ; the global Airbus fleet having performed more than 110 million flights over 215 billion kilometres, carrying 12 billion passengers.