Latvia’s national carrier airBaltic will become the largest European customer of the Airbus A220 by purchasing 30 additional aircraft. The European aircraft manufacturer, however, still has work to do in terms of orders if it wishes to match its 2022 harvest.
Announced Monday at the Dubai Air Show, this contract – the largest of the year for this program – increases to 80 the number of A220-300s that have been purchased by this airline since 2016. The company was the first to operate the largest aircraft in the aircraft family.
“This project marks an important milestone in the history of airBaltic, namely our plan to operate for the first time a fleet of 100 aircraft by 2030,” says its president and CEO Martin Gauss. For almost seven years now, the A220-300 has been the backbone of our activities. »
Taking into account the commitment of the Latvian company, Airbus has, since the beginning of the year, obtained 76 firm orders for the A220. In 2022, the European manufacturer had received 105 firm commitments. He must therefore sell 29 other copies of this plane developed by Bombardier.
Listening to Airbus Canada President and CEO Benoît Schultz, the aircraft manufacturer could well achieve this. Passing before the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM) last week, the latter affirmed that “many campaigns” were “active”.
“I think that before the end of November, we will have more good news for the A220,” Mr. Schultz said. We really see very strong activity. »
With some 550 aircraft in the order book taking into account the AirBaltic announcement, the A220 delivery slots are full for several years. For all single-aisle aircraft at Airbus, these slots are full until 2029. Customers must therefore be patient when purchasing new aircraft, because they must, in principle, wait several years before starting to receive them.
Alongside orders, Airbus finally manages to accelerate its production rate, essential to the profitability of the program, which is still in the red. By the end of October, 50 examples of the A220 had been delivered to customers, a number up 28% from last year. The A220 is expected to be profitable once 14 aircraft are assembled monthly at factories in Mirabel and Mobile, Alabama. Airbus has often said that this target will be achieved around the “mid-decade”. The company is now talking about 2026 more categorically.
Quebec owns 25% of the A220. The Quebec state has injected 1.7 billion into the program since 2015.