Airbus is making progress on Air France’s first Airbus A220, with it completing its maiden flight.
The first flight was carried out on Thursday 26 August. The Airbus A220, sporting the Air France colours, made its first flight This test flight, known as a production flight, is the final part of the assembly phase and represents a major milestone before the Airbus A220 delivery process.
The production flight is carried out to ensure the aircraft’s compliance and the proper functioning of all systems in flight
The Air France A220 is scheduled to be delivered towards the end of September. During this time, the Air France Airbus A220 will fly again to validate another major phase in the delivery process – the customer acceptance flight.
During the flight, the Airbus teams, this time accompanied by Air France teams, will check the aircraft’s compliance with the specifications defined by Air France.
Air France will be configuring their Airbus A220-300 with 148 seats aboard, which will allow them to fly a range of 2,300 nautical miles. In terms of passenger experience, there are some highlights including wider seats, large-capacity baggage racks, wider aisle spaces and in-flight Wi-Fi.
The company will be taking on 60 Airbus A220-300 aircraft in its short to medium-haul fleet, to replace its Airbus A318 and A319 on the short and medium-haul networks.
Wither mini-buses
With 148 seats aboard, the main casualties will be the. Airbus A318 (with 122 seats) and A319 fleets (133 seats) are currently operated the airline. The 60 A220-300 will replace 18 A318 (the smallest of the Airbus narrow-body aircraft and 31 Airbus A319, providing both higher seat counts as well as more aircraft to play with.
Combined with a superior passenger experience – the Air France A220 could be a very tempting prospect for the short-haul traveller.
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