The Airbus A220 is a regional jetliner, formerly known as the Bombardier CSeries.
The Airbus A220 (known as the Bombardier CSeries until July 2018) is a medium-range narrowbody twinjet produced, since July 2018, by a partnership between airbus and bombardier (having previously been produced solely by Bombardier from 2012 until 2018). It complements the smaller members of the airbus-a320 family, and competes with the smaller models of the boeing-737 and dc-9-family and with the embraer-e-jet.
Bombardier’s first tentative exploration of a jetliner larger than the bombardier-crj came in February 1996, when they looked into acquiring Dutch manufacturer fokker and their fokker-100 jetliner; the deal fell through (and Fokker went bankrupt sixteen days later), but the idea of a larger Bombardier jetliner resurfaced in September 1998 with the Bombardier Regional Jet eXpansion, or BRJ-X. Larger and wider than the then-current versions of the CRJ, the BRJ-X would have seated 85 to 110 passengers, and, in a preview of things to come, switched away from the CRJ’s tail-mounted engines and resultant t-tail in favour of the bog-standard (and more maintenance-crew-friendly) formula of underwing engines and a conventional tail (the cockpit, on the other hand, remained that of the CRJ, something which would remain the case - with only minor changes - right through the entire life of what would eventually become the A220). However, at the end of 2000, this programme, too, was shelved, with Bombardier instead deciding simply to stretch out the CRJ into a looooonger version.
There matters rested until March 2004, when Bombardier again looked into developing a larger-than-CRJ jetliner. This time, the aircraft would be known as the Bombardier CSeries (acquiring a name it would hold onto through a troubled fourteen years), and would carry between 110 and 135 passengers. It, too, was shelved (in January 2006), but, this time, although most of the people and facilities from the CSeries were reallocated to other projects (including the ever-successful CRJ), a skeleton staff was retained to keep the lights on (so to speak) and see if they could help the CSeries ripen.
The CSeries moved back onto the front burner precisely one year later, and, following some work on the design, Bombardier officially launched the CSeries in July 2008. Design work continued for four more years, with assembly of the first prototypes beginning in 2012. Following the February 2013 certification of the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G geared-turbofan that would power the CSeries, the first CSeries aircraft (a CS100) made its maiden flight on 26 September 2013; however, flight testing was abruptly halted in May 2014, after one of the test aircraft suffered an uncontained engine-failure. Following identification and correction of the problem, flights resumed in September, but this several-month setback (far from the first such delay in the CSeries programme) pushed back the date forecast for its entry into service, and lost Bombardier a number of orders from airlines unwilling to wait years for new aircraft.
After a long - and very expensive - flight test programme (requiring considerable monetary aid from the Canadian government to keep the aircraft afloat), FAA and EASA certification for the CS100 was finally granted in June 2016, with the first being delivered before the month was out. Certification - and first deliveries - of the CS300 followed later that year.
Then, just as Bombardier accepted an order from Delta Air Lines for 75 aircraft (plus options for 50 more) in April 2017, boeing, fearing the thought of having to compete with another manufacturer in the U.S. market, butted in, managing, that September, to get the U.S. government to impose 300% tariffs on the CSeries (just as Boeing has attempted to do with every Airbus airliner ever) in retaliation for what it claimed was Bombardier’s attempt to undercut them (just as Boeing has claimed was the case for every Airbus airliner ever). Unfortunately for Boeing, their shenanigans backfired; Boeing’s complaint was thrown out on its ear in January 2018 (as were its attendant tariffs), and the whole affair pushed Bombardier into the arms of Airbus, who bought a 50.01% share of the programme in July 2018, renaming it the Airbus A220. Since then, it’s been smooth sailing for the A220, with a notable milestone being the granting of 180-minute etops privileges in January 2019.
There are two variants of the A220:
- The A220-100, née CS100 (2009-2018), née C110 (2004-2009), was the first variant to enter service, first carrying passengers for Swiss International Air Lines (a lufthansa subsidiary) in July 2016. It seats 108 to 133 passengers, and has a range of 5,460 km (2,950 nmi). Twelve have been delivered as of the end of 2018, out of a total of 88 ordered so far.
- The larger (130-160 passengers), longer-range (5,920 km [3,200 nmi]), more popular (45 deliveries and 404 pending orders) variant is the A220-300, née CS300, née C130, which entered service with AirBaltic in December 2016.
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