Air TransportAirbus Admits A319neo Phase Out May Be Near
Airbus finds itself at a crossroads regarding the A319neo, the smallest member of the A320neo family, the most successful in the history of commercial aviation.
Despite its good range of 3,700 nm (6,850 km) and capacity (up to 160 passengers), the aircraft has only attracted 57 orders in 15 years on the market. This sales performance is far from comparable to its larger siblings, the A320neo and A321neo.
Given this situation, A320 Family Chief Engineer Marc Guinot admitted that the A319neo may be on its way out. “We could consider stopping the A319 at some point, but to do this, we should first have an A320neo with a very good level of performance for high-altitude airports,” he told Airliner World.
Guinot cited the sole reason the aircraft remains in production as its ability to operate to high-altitude destinations, highly valued by some Chinese airlines, which account for the majority of the (few) orders.
The A319neo can operate from airports as high as 14,500 feet (4,420 meters) while carrying a high payload, making it unique in this category.
A320neo for High-Altitude Airports
The alternative Airbus is seeking is to enhance the A320neo to achieve even superior high-altitude performance compared to the A319neo. This work should be completed by the end of the decade, which would allow the aircraft manufacturer to offer it to its customers.
Until then, however, COMAC plans to launch the “C919 Plateau”, a smaller jet focused on performance at high-altitude airports.
The fact is that Airbus no longer needs the A319neo since it acquired the C Series family from Bombardier. Renamed the A220, the Canadian jet can carry a similar number of passengers over distances almost as long as the A319neo—3,400 nm or 6,300 km.
And the A220 does this at enormous savings because it is much lighter than the A319neo, an aircraft that doesn’t excite customers precisely because of its high operating costs per seat.
In any case, Airbus still has 25 aircraft to be delivered: nine for Air China, four for Tibet Airlines, 10 for undisclosed customers, and two executive ACJs.
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Ricardo Meier
Creator of the website that started in 1996 as a magazine. He also writes on Brazilian websites AUTOO, MOTOO and MetrôCPTM.
