WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Airbus is a European aircraft manufacturer headquartered in Toulouse, France.
He added that they are currently working with the suppliers to see when they can increase the rate of the production.
“We want to go to rate 50 in 2017, and maybe even higher. We still have overbooking. When our supply chain can make it, then we will go to higher rates.”
The spokesperson added that Russia is not only a very valuable customer, but also a very important supplier.
Since the 1990s, the main supplier of titanium for Airbus as well as for its parent company EADS, has been Russian company VSMPO-Avisma. The company provides about 60 percent of Airbus’ demand of titanium.
Schaffrath noted that Airbus is now producing forty-two A320 every month, which means one A320 every seven hours.
Airbus Develops at ‘Full Speed’ Ejectable, Longer Floating Black Boxes
Airbus is developing black boxes that would eject during the crash and then float, making them easier to find, amid the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 a year ago, Stefan added.
“In the industry, we are now considering developing deployable black boxes for the A350 and 380, meaning an ejectable black box which is dispatched before the aircraft crashes, and with longer floating devices, longer pinger devices.”
The spokesperson explained, “In the case, for example, of MH370 tragedy where the aircraft was lost somewhere in the Indian ocean they could have been dispatched, floated and found.”
Schaffrath stressed Airbus learnt the lesson from the accident, when they needed to look very deep in the ocean for the black boxes.
He noted that they are planning to first introduce such black boxes in their latest airplanes A350 and A380.
“Then we will look back at the entire Airbus fleet,” he added.
Airbus is working on extending the time of black box pingers that transmits signals about a box location to 90 days, compared to the current 30 days, Schaffrath said.
In March 2014, the Malaysian Airlines Boeing — with 239 passengers and crew members on board — vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. After about an hour of travel the plane disappeared from radar, apparently crashing in the Indian Ocean. No trace of the plane has been found.
