ILA 2000: When Dasa Airbus began assembling Airbus airliners seven years ago at its Otto Lilienthal Hangar in Hamburg it planned on producing five a month. But with the boom in orders for A319 and A321 single-aisle airliners it is ratcheting up production yet again this summer to a record 15 per month, and will add the smallest-of-the-family 107-passenger A318 to the line in 2001.

"Since we started these successful programs Airbus collected 127 firm orders for the A318, nearly 600 orders for the A319 and more than 320 orders for the A321-more than 1,000 orders so far," noted Gustav Humbert, who will be COO of Airbus when EADS is formed next month. Hamburg has delivered more than 140 Airbus airliners to date.