A320 Sharklet 1000th Delivery

The Airbus Sharklets programme celebrated reaching a milestone on 18 February 2014 with an event to celebrate the 1000th delivery held at Korean Air's Aerospace Division (Korean ASD) in Busan, South Korea.

The event was attended by dignitaries from both companies, From Korean Air there was Walter Cho, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer; Young Sik Kang, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer and Myung Rae Ham, Senior Vice President of the Aerospace Division. Travelling from Airbus were Tom Williams, Executive Vice President programmes and Jean-Francoise Laval, Executive Vice President of Sales Asia.

Korean ASD is the sole supplier of these devices to Airbus having won the international bidding process announced in November 2009 in which 20 companies from around the world competed for the prestigious contract.

Korean Air carried out the design, development, manufacturing, testing and certification of these fuel saving devices at their huge plant based at the international airport in Busan on the countries south coast. Built using lightweight composite materials, the 2.4 metre tall units help reduce wingtip vortices thereby reducing fuel burn. Additionally there is an improvement in payload range performance all of which corresponds to a reduction in CO2 emissions claimed to be in the region of 3,600 tonnes per aircraft.
Martyn J Cartledge
Korean air has established an 'Auto moving line' which was proudly shown to the dignitaries on a tour around the factory after the ceremony. This type of manufacturing process is rare in aerostructure factories, small production systems are more common for this type of manufacturing. This line was established in the 1280 m2 Tech Center Commercial Aircraft Manufacturing Plant in April 2013 and is equipped with a thermo hygrostat helping the construction process.

This line is capable of producing 70 ship sets (140 Sharklets) per month, however current rates are 45 ship sets (90 Sharklets) with an expected increase soon to 50 ship sets (100 Sharklets) per month. During the tour the first ship set for the A320neo was shown to the delegates.

The number of Sharklets delivered is considerably higher than required for actual new aircraft production. This is because there is the need not only for aircraft under construction and in service. Some are required for spares departments and there is the retrofitting programme of which JetBlue is a major customer. Not only these but the lead time required in shipping these items also needs taking into consideration.
The Sharklets are not the only part manufactured for Airbus, structures for both the A330 and the new A350WXB are also manufactured. Furthermore Airbus is not their only customer in the commercial sector with both Boeing and Embraer having also awarded contracts to Korean ASD.