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 and public roads, with the addition of some new road sections. Specially constructed ships, barges and road vehicles carry the aircraft parts on the route, as traditional transportation methods proved unfeasible. The parts are not handled directly.

Major sections of the fuselage of the A380 are built in northern France, Germany and Spain, whilst the wings are built in the United Kingdom. Due to the size of the A380, most of these parts are moved on the surface through the Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit, although some smaller parts are carried by the A300-600ST Beluga aircraft used in the construction of other, smaller, Airbus models.

The first stage of the route uses a fleet of three Roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ships; the Ville de Bordeaux (2004), the City of Hamburg (2008) and the Ciudad de Cadiz (2009). These ships are controlled by Fret Cetam SA, a joint venture between shipping companies Höegh Autoliners and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, and leased to Airbus.

The front and rear sections of the fuselage are loaded aboard one of the fleet in Hamburg in northern Germany, from where they are shipped to the United Kingdom. The wings, which are manufactured at Filton in Bristol and Broughton in North Wales, are transported by barge on the River Dee to Mostyn docks, where the ship adds them to its cargo. The Ciudad de Cadiz went aground without cargo on sandbanks outside Mostyn in January 2013, when its moorings burst during high winds.

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Wikipedia