Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) has delivered the first A321neo assembled at its Tianjin facility to Juneyao Air (HO, Shanghai Hongqiao). The 207-seater twinjet is powered by Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan (GTF) engines.

The manufacturer announced the commissioning of the first A321neo to be put together at its Final Assembly Line (FAL) Asia in Tianjin in November 2022. The facility itself was inaugurated in 2008, at the time making it the first Airbus commercial aircraft assembly line outside Europe. The manufacturer now has four A320 Family final assembly facilities - at Hamburg Finkenwerder, Toulouse, Tianjin, and Mobile Regional, United States.

“Since we announced the commissioning of the first A321 aircraft at FAL Tianjin last November, the relevant final assembly activities and tests went on smoothly,” said Airbus China CEO George Xu, adding that assembling aircraft in China helps to “ensure customer proximity while supporting the global commercial aircraft production ramp-up.”

Airbus Tianjin is a joint venture between the European manufacturer and a consortium of Tianjin Free Trade Zone (TJFTZ) and China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC).

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Juneyao Air currently operates six A321-200NX among a fleet of 88 aircraft (also eighteen A320-200Ns, thirty-one A320-200s, twenty-seven A321-200s, and six B787-9s). It has four more A321neo and four more B787s on order. The most recent delivery was A321-200NX B-32DF (msn 11158). Delivered in March, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows that it has already been deployed on routes linking Shanghai Hongqiao, Chongqing, Kunming Changshui, Qingdao Jiaodong, Changchun, Zhuhai, Guiyang, and Chengdu Tianfu.

B-32DF is powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM geared turbofan engines, similar to the models that have caused controversy in countries such as India.