Airbus delivered twelve A220s in October
Airbus has managed to significantly reduce the inventory of undelivered A220s at its Mirabel plant. Delta Airlines alone took possession of eleven aircraft, including seven A220-100s and four A220-300s. For its part, Air Canada has taken delivery of an A220-300. The total A220 deliveries for the year now stands at 30. You can view a list of all A220s delivered since June 2016 by clicking here.
Delta
To date, Delta has taken possession of 38 A220-100 and 4 A220-300 for a total of 42. As of April 2016, Delta had placed an order with Bombardier for 75 CS-100s with options for another 50. The contract offered Delta the option to convert the order for CS-300s after the 25th delivery. The airline has therefore chosen to limit the number of CS100s to 45. On two other occasions it converted options to firm order adding 20 A220-300s, bringing the total firm order to 95 aircraft.
I have spoken a few times about Delta’s seniority issues and the consequences for the A220. But this week, the company reached an agreement with the pilots’ union. If the deal is approved, the 1941 layoffs among pilots would be canceled. The employer has suspended layoffs until November 28 to allow pilots to vote on the deal.
If ratified by the pilots, this agreement would resolve the pilot shortage problem on Delta’s A220s. This probably explains why the airline accepted 11 aircraft in October.
Upcoming deliveries
With deliveries in October, Airbus managed to free up a lot of space in Mirabel. There is still the A220-300 for Air Vanuatu which is assembled but not delivered. Four A220-300s for Air Canada could be delivered by the end of 2020 as well as two to Air Baltic. It is not impossible that more aircraft will be delivered, but that seems more uncertain to me.
The Mobile FAL should be able to deliver on or two aircraft to Delta and Jetblue’s first one before the year end. But in 2021, Mobile will be very busy with the orders from Breeze, Delta and Jetblue. It cannot be ruled out that some of the planes in these three orders will be assembled at Mirabel.
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