Page 6 - AAA MARCH - MAY 2022 Online Magazine

COVER STORY

Flying High

A GROWING ORDERBOOK AND BACKLOG
SIGNAL A HEALTHY FUTURE FOR AIRBUS’ A220

Atul Chandra

Airbus is steadily marching toward the 1,000 order mark for the Airbus spokesperson told AAA.
A220 single-aisle jetliner, which is increasingly attracting interest
from a growing number of airline customers. The might of Airbus’ Sales Pitch
global sales, marketing and support network has energised orders Airbus recently completed a week-long demon-
for the A220, which as of February, stood at 740 orders from over stration tour of the A220 to the Asia-Pacific
25 customers. The A220 now dominates the small single-aisle region, a core market for Airbus, accounting
segment with a 54 percent market share. for a third of its total order book and a third of
its revenues. Demonstration flights in Sydney,
Airbus is targeting a maximum production capacity of 14 aircraft Singapore, Hanoi and Tokyo were undertaken
per month (168 aircraft annually) to be achieved by the middle of with an A220-300 belonging to airBaltic. The
the decade. The airframer plans to build six aircraft per month by A220’s range and capacity make it ideal for car-
early 2022. A new section dedicated to pre-assembly of major riers seeking to open new regional routes out
components, the “pre-FAL” in Mirabel (or pre-final assembly line) of Asia-Pacific, or those that require an aircraft
started operations on January 10. This section will be feeding for lucrative but thin routes out of the country.
components for both the Mirabel and Mobile final assembly lines. The A220 has allowed airline operators to
The new generation single-aisle type, entered service as the open new routes, which would have often been
Bombardier C Series in July 2016 and Airbus rebranded the type unprofitable before. As the most efficient air-
as the A220 in 2020, after purchasing the programme from the craft in its class, the A220 has proven to be
troubled Canadian airframer. one of the industry’s most successful fleets
during the pandemic and continues to be one
More than 200 A220s are now flying across the globe. As of the of the most attractive assets on the market
end of December 2021, the global A220 fleet has completed coming out of the crisis, the spokesperson
440,000+ flight cycles, 675,000 flight hours on 550+ routes, total- said. The A220’s range of up to 6,300 km, will
izing 275+ destinations. The ‘Operational Reliability’ of the A220 as allow existing and potential airline customers,
of February was around 99 per cent. “As the A220 is still a young to offer connections between the Asia-Pacific
product in-service, we are working on some items to continue region, with Australia, North Asia and the Middle
raising our Operational reliability in the future, for example,” an East. The A220’s versatility has allowed major

6 March_May 2022 WWW .GBP .COM.SG/ AAA