Airbus delivers its 12,000th jet to Delta Air Lines

Airbus has celebrated the delivery of its 12,000^th aircraft in its 50-year history. The aircraft was an A220-100, assembled in Mirabel, Canada and handed over to U.S.-based Delta Air Lines. The aircraft is the 12^th A220 delivered to date to Delta Air Lines since the carrier received its first A220 in October 2018. SEE our tribute to the Concorde  The A220 started scheduled service with Delta in February 2019. Delta is the first U.S. airline to operate the A220 and is the largest A220 customer, with a firm order for 90 aircraft. While Airbus history dates back 50 years, the company is, in fact, an amalgamation and JV of many of the greatest names in aviation from Europe and the UK that date back to the beginnings of manned flight. Airbus said that the milestone delivery of a Canadian-made Airbus aircraft to a U.S.-based airline highlights the growing presence of Airbus in North America. Since Airbus’ leadership of the A220 programme became effective on July 1^st 2018, the ground was broken in January this year in Mobile, Alabama for the construction of a second A220 final assembly line, set to start deliveries to U.S. customers in 2020. Airbus delivered its first aircraft, an A300B2 to Air France, back in 1974 and handed over its 6,000^th in 2010. But just nine years later it has doubled that number and reached 12,000. And the order momentum continues. In April Airbus logged orders for a total of five A350 XWB and A330neo widebody jetliners in April and delivered 70 aircraft during the month from across its A220, A320, A330neo and A350 XWB single-aisle and widebody product lines. The bookings included three A350-900s for Lufthansa Technik on behalf of the German government, making the European country a new A350 XWB customer.  The month’s other order involved two A330-800 versions of the A330neo for Uganda Airlines, positioning Uganda’s national carrier as a new Airbus customer. Deliveries in April were made to 35 customers. In the single-aisle sector, Airbus provided three A220s, and 57 A320 Family aircraft (47 in the NEO configuration, along with 10 CEO versions). For widebody jetliners, two A330neo jetliners were provided during the month, along with eight A350 XWBs (in both the A350-900 and A350-1000 configurations). Taking the latest orders, deliveries and cancellations into account, Airbus’ backlog of jetliners remaining to be delivered as of 30 April stood at 7,287 aircraft.