Antonio Da Costa, the Vice President of Single-Aisle Marketing of Airbus, reportedly announced that despite initial plans to increase Airbus A220 production in both facilities in Mirabel, Quebec, and Mobile, Alabama, the European plane manufacturer would restrict the A220 production rates in its main Mirabel plant.
In the interview with Canada24 News on November 11, 2020, Da Costa reportedly said that Airbus considered to roll off three A220s monthly in the assembly line at the Mirabel facility while making only one jet per month at its Alabama-based Mobile plant. In comparison, in January 2020, Airbus initially planned to increase investments and expand the production rates of the A220 to 10 jets in Mirabel and 4 aircraft in Mobile facilities per month.
The A220 production suffered an extra hit by Air Canada (ADH2) earlier in November 2020. The airline decided to change its order book and reduced its Airbus A220 orders from a total of 45 jets to 18 planes only.
Despite Airbus plans to cut production in the main Mirabel plant, it seems that the manufacturer still sees the A220 as the optimal choice for struggling airlines.
While during the crisis “airlines go for the most efficient, lowest cost”, Da Costa considered that the low operating costs and a flexible platform for long and short operations were the main advantages of the A220 that made the jet an engaging “choice [that] was flying around most of the time”.
In total, Airbus has sold 642 A220s of which 135 have already been made and delivered to clients worldwide. According to Airbus orders and deliveries book update as of October 31, 2020, the European manufacturer has delivered a total of 10 Airbus A220-100 jets and 20 A220-300s in 2020. The manufacturer also received 6 orders for the A220-100 variant and 36 for the A220-300 configuration. Initially, Airbus had a total of 58 A220-300 narrow-body orders. However, the company lost 22 of them.
On October 22, 2020, Airbus completed the special A220-300 delivery. The planemaker transferred its first United States-built Airbus A220-300 aircraft to Delta Air Lines from its Alabama-based manufacturing site. The delivery of the first U.S.-built A220-300 was a historic moment that highlighted Airbus’ growth in the region of North America.
