Description
Airbus A220:The Airbus A220 is a family of narrow-body airliner designed by Bombardier Aerospace as the Bombardier CSeries. The smaller variant (CS100 now known as A220-100), seating 108 to 133, made its maiden flight on 16 September 2013, was awarded an initial type certification by Transport Canada on 18 December 2015, and entered service on 15 July 2016 with launch operator Swiss Global Air Lines. The longer variant (CS300 now known as A220-300), seating 130 to 160, first flew on 27 February 2015, received an initial type certification on 11 July 2016, and entered service with airBaltic on 14 December 2016.
In July 2018, the aircraft was rebranded as the A220 after Airbus acquired 50.01% of the program through a joint venture, which was later renamed Airbus Canada Limited Partnership. In August 2019, a second final assembly line opened at Airbus Mobile, supplementing the initial Mirabel facility. In February 2020, Airbus increased its share to 75% as Bombardier exited the program, while the provincial government's Investissement Québec held the 25% balance.
Powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1500G geared turbofans, the twinjet has fly-by-wire flight controls, a carbon composite wing and an aluminium-lithium fuselage. Early operators, Swiss and airBaltic, recorded better-than-expected fuel burn and dispatch reliability, as well as positive feedback from passengers and crew. Delta Air Lines is currently the largest operator with 50 airplanes in its fleet.[4] As of June 2021, a total of 648 aircraft had been ordered of which 164 had been delivered.[3] The A220 family complements the A319neo in the Airbus range and competes with the largest variants of the Embraer E-Jet E2 family and the smaller Boeing 737 MAX-7 variant.
