Once a small inland port on the Loire, Saint-Nazaire grew into a shipbuilding center and industrialized port with the expansion of its basins in the mid-1800s. Now one of the busiest ports on the Atlantic coast of France, Saint-Nazaire's economy thrives on major industries such as shipbuilding, aerospace manufacturing and engineering, and its port activity. Saint-Nazaire is an assembly center for Airbus, where parts for the A380 arrive from manufacturing centers in across Europe for assembly. In 2008 Spirit AeroSystems chose Saint-Nazaire as the site of it center to receive center fuselage frame sections for the Airbus A350XWB (Xtra Wide-Body) commercial aircraft from its facility in Kinston, North Carolina, USA. Sections designed and manufactured in North Carolina will be shipped across the Atlantic, received in Saint-Nazaire, and assembled before being transported to Airbus as “Section 15.” Construction of the 5,378-square-meter Spirit facility at Saint-Nazaire began in 2009.