France Guide
Languedoc
Aérospatiale
Telephone: 05.34.39.42.00
Website: www.taxiway.fr
Price: €14
In 1970 Toulouse became home to Aérospatiale, which, along with the aerospace industries of Germany, Britain and Spain, now manufactures Airbus passenger jets. The planes are assembled, painted and tested in a vast hangar, L'Usine Clément Ader, before taking their maiden flights from next-door Blagnac airport. Members of the public are allowed inside the plant on a highly informative guided tour (normally in French), but you need to apply at least two weeks before with your passport details, or a few days before for citizens of EU-member countries. After a brief bus tour round the site and a short PR film, you climb high above the eerily quiet assembly bays where just one hundred people churn out five planes a week, ably assisted by scores of computerized robots. Look out for the latest Airbus, the A380, a two-storey superliner which dwarfs even the Jumbo.