KEVIN MAYHEW BEFORE THE Airbus A380 passenger and freighter aircraft becomes a logistics solution it presents its manufacturer with a complex logistics challenge – to get thousands of components from manufacturers around the world for assembly at the Jean Luc Lagardere complex in Toulouse, France. More dramatic is the movement of its assembled fuselage subsections from assembly manufacturing points to the assembly areas. It is a case of ships, river barges and road transport to deliver the four main fuselage components per aircraft built to Toulouse. All large A380 sections are transported by truck and trailer from the production sites inland to the nearest river or sea port. Wings, for example, travel from Broughton, UK, to the river Dee where they are loaded onto a special barge. A 24 kilometer trip along the Dee estuary brings them to a port and they are loaded onto a very large capacity roll-on, roll-off vessel which transports the aircraft sections by sea from Airbus sites in the UK, Germany, France and Spain to the French city port of Pauillac near Bordeaux. The components are then transferred to specially designed barges, which carry them on the penultimate part of their voyage up the Garonne River from Pauillac to the river harbour of Langon. Between Pauilliac and Langon the specially designed barges are equipped with a ballast system to clear bridges, even at high water levels. The river journey is 95 kilometers long and four journeys are required to transport the sections for one aircraft. Transport is planned for a maximum rate of one aircraft per week with navigation slots depending on tide and weather conditions to clear the Bordeaux bridge. By 2008 it is expected that there will be 200 river convoys – a river barge with load – per year. In Langon they are transferred to special trucks and trailers to continue the final part of the journey to Toulouse. The specially developed route uses mainly public roads and sections travel only at night to minimise disruption for motorists. They stop at special stopover points during the day. The convoy takes several days to cover the 240 kilometers between Langon and Toulouse and comprises three trucks and trailers carrying the front, centre and rear fuselage sections, two carrying the wings and one the horizontal tailplane. Pretty much plane sailing I would say.
