American, Qantas deals lift Airbus A321XLR to 191 orders already

Three days after it was officially presented to the public at Paris Air Show, the A321XLR already racks up 191 orders.

Qantas was the first to place an order on June 19, 2019, for 36 A321XLR, including 26 as a reconversion of an existing order of A321neo. In total, the Australian company has an ongoing order of 45 A320neo, 28 A321LR and 36 A321XLR with Airbus.

On the same day, the youngest member of Airbus’ family has convinced another company. Indigo Partners group announced it would convert 18 of its previous A320neo order into A321XLR, and add another 32, for a total order of 50 of the new aircraft. Twenty of the A321XLRs should be allocated to Wizz Air, 18 to Frontier, and 12 to JetSMART. Including the latest deal, Indigo Partners has 636 aircraft on order with Airbus.

Finally, American Airlines (A1G) (AAL) also converted an existing order for 30 A321neo into A321 XLR and 20 additional orders. American, the largest Airbus operator in the world with 422 aircraft, has now ongoing orders for 65 A321neos and 50 A321XLRs from Airbus.

Airbus presented the A321 XLR, new version of the A321, on the first day of Paris Air Show, on June 17, 2019. This single-aisle aircraft with an extended range is able to operate many long-haul routes and is designed to appeal to low-cost airlines wishing to develop their business on the long haul.

In the first two days, it accumulated 27 orders from Air Lease Corporation, 4 from Middle East Airlines, 10 from Cebu Pacific and 14 from International Airlines Group (IAG) . In total, 191 A321XLRs were ordered in the first three days of Paris Air Show.