The aerospace giant delivered their first U.S. assembled A220 aircraft from their Mobile, Alabama plant to Delta Air Lines today. The latest milestone follows the groundbreaking of Airbus’ Mobile A220 Final Assembly line in January 2019 and August 2019 start of production.
On Thursday (October 22, 2020), Airbus announced the delivery of their first U.S. assembled A220 to Delta Air Lines, which was delivered from their Mobile, Alabama facility. The company broke ground on their Mobile A220 Final Assembly line in January 2019, with production commencing in August 2019. The aircraft’s inaugural flight took place last June and the teams at the company’s Mirabel, Canada and Mobile facilities worked closely to make U.S. A220 production a success. In Thursday’s announcement, Airbus’ A220 Program Leader, Phillipe Balducchi, said,
“Handing over the first U.S.-assembled aircraft to a U.S.-based customer is a real point of pride for the A220 programme. The delivery is the first of many to come and shows the strong collaborative spirit between the A220 Programme teams globally.”
Airbus has trained over 400 U.S. employees on A220 production, with some team members having been trained at company’s Mirabel facility in Quebec, Canada. About a year ago the first U.S. based production team began assembling A220s at the new Mobile, Alabama facility.
Currently, Delta Air Lines is the largest A220 customer with a total of 95 aircraft on order. Delta will become the first U.S. operator of the type with a mix of both A220-100s and A220-300s. The Airbus A220 is the cleanest, quietest and most environmentally-friendly aircraft in its class, featuring a 25 percent reduction in fuel burn and half the noise footprint of previous generation aircraft. The aircraft also produces 50 percent lower NOx emissions, when compared to the industry standard. At the end of the third quarter 2020, Airbus had delivered 123 A330s to seven global operators, and the aircraft is currently in service on routes in Asia, America, Europe and Africa.
Source: Airbus