Ville de Bordeaux
Encyclopedia
The Ville de Bordeaux is a ship carrier designed to transport the elements of the Airbus A380
Airbus A380
The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. Due to its size, many airports had to modify and improve facilities to accommodate it...
.
A380 production
The origin of Airbus as a European holding company for a series of country-based existing aerospace manufacturers resulted in a geographically diversified structure with plants in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Transportation of components and sub-structures of existing Airbus models was facilitated by air, using the specially developed A300-600ST BelugaAirbus Beluga
-External links:*...
aircraft.
As the major components and sub-assembly structures of the A380 were too big for the A300-600ST, Airbus were forced to choose between keeping open their diverse existing European factory infrastructure, or finding a way of transporting the components to final assembly plant in Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
. Airbus choose to keep the plants diversified, using sea and road transport, with the production facilities and supply chain
Supply chain
A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to...
scaled for a production rate of four A380s per month.
Design
Conceived by Deltamarin, Ville de Bordeaux was designed as a Roll-on/roll-off ferryFerry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
. She was built in Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
using the Jinling shipyard. The Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit
Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit
The Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit is a water and road route that has been created in order to allow the transport of the outsize structural sections of the Airbus A380 airliner from their point of manufacture to Toulouse for final assembly. The route was largely created by modifying existing waterways...
, a system of new wider roads, waterways and barges was also developed to deliver the A380 parts.
Built for a cost of $30million, the ship was launched in January 2004. She is the lead ship in a fleet of three Roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ships leased to Airbus; the others being the City of Hamburg delivered in 2008 and the Ciudad de Cadiz delivered in 2009.
Jointly owned by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs of France, and Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
ship-owner Leif Höegh & Co
Leif Höegh & Co
Leif Höegh & Co is an international shipping company, founded in 1927 by Norwegian Leif Høegh . Since 2006 the company has been structured as two separate entities, Höegh Autoliners and Höegh LNG, with Leif Höegh & Co acting as a common holding company.-See also: -External links:***...
; she is operated jointly by their subsidiary companies Fret and CETAM, on a 20+10year lease
Lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee to pay the lessor for use of an asset. A rental agreement is a lease in which the asset is tangible property...
to Airbus. The ship started operations on June 10, 2004.
Operations
Starting in Hamburg-Finkenwerder on the River Elbe, the ship loads the front and rear sections of the fuselage, from where they are shipped to the United Kingdom. The wings, which are manufactured at FiltonFilton
Filton is a town in South Gloucestershire, England, situated on the northern outskirts of the city of Bristol, about from the city centre. Filton lies in Bristol postcode areas BS7 and BS34. The town centres upon Filton Church, which dates back to the 12th century and is a grade II listed building...
in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
and Broughton, Flintshire
Broughton, Flintshire
Broughton is a small district in Flintshire, Wales, close to the Wales–England border and located to the west of the City of Chester, England. Along with the nearby village of Bretton, the total population was 5,791 at the 2001 Census....
in North Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, are transported by barge
Barge
A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...
to Mostyn
Mostyn
Mostyn is a small village in Flintshire, North Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Dee, and located near the town of Holywell.Mostyn once served as a port from which ferries used to sail to Dublin on the Liverpool-Dublin route...
docks, where the ship adds them to its cargo. In Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire , is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France.The town has a major harbour, on the right bank of the Loire River estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean. The town is at the south of the second-largest swamp in France, called "la Brière"...
in western France, the ship trades the fuselage sections from Hamburg for larger, assembled sections, some of which include the nose. The ship unloads in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
. Afterwards, the ship picks up the belly and tail sections by Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA
Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA
Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA , was a Spanish aircraft manufacturer. It became EADS CASA the Spanish branch of EADS in 1999, but was absorbed by Airbus Military in 2009...
in Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
in southern Spain, and delivers them to Bordeaux. From there, the A380 parts are transported by barge to Langon
Langon, Gironde
Langon is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.-Geography:Langon is in the southern part of the department southeast of Bordeaux on the left bank of the Garonne river...
, and by the oversize road convoys of the Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit
Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit
The Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit is a water and road route that has been created in order to allow the transport of the outsize structural sections of the Airbus A380 airliner from their point of manufacture to Toulouse for final assembly. The route was largely created by modifying existing waterways...
from there to the assembly hall in Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
.
After assembly, the aircraft are flown to Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport (XFW) to be furnished and painted. It takes 3600 l (951 US gal) of paint to cover the 3100 m² (33,368.1 sq ft) exterior of an A380.