So what should Airbus do? Looking at the lowest cost option in 2000, it finally opted for an unexpected compromise that put A3XX assembly in Toulouse but used Hamburg’s Ro-Ro sea transport scheme as the transportation method. Furthermore, to satisfy German demands for a key role in final production and to relieve some pressure on Toulouse, Hamburg Finkenwerder was allocated the task of completing furnishing, painting, and cabin production test flights. In a further twist, the split also gave Hamburg responsibility for completing aircraft destined for European and Middle Eastern customers, while Toulouse would handle the rest of the world.
The complex production and subassembly transportation system was a fantastic logistical and industrial feat of planning, with parts due to pour into Europe from all over the world. Once inside Europe’s bounds, the real magic began with a carefully choreographed ballet of ships, barges, trucks, and aircraft bringing together the assemblies in Toulouse using the Airbus multi-modal transport system (MMTS).
With the start of parts manufacturing, the dance began all over Europe at roughly the same time, but the MMTS ballet commences when these parts are assembled into larger sections. The forward and aft fuselage sections are completed in Finkenwerder, where Airbus Germany had built a 300-acre plant expansion, including four hangars of 10,800 square feet each. The site also includes a cabin furnishing hall and fuselage production lines, housed in the major component assembly (MCA) hall, as well as two paint shops.