With several airlines around the world signaling interest in a stretched Airbus A220,
a common criticism of this hypothetical endeavor is that the jet would cannibalize sales of the
planemaker’s similarly-sized A320neo. Let’s unpack and evaluate this conundrum in this video.
To date, 70 A319neo jets have been ordered although the passenger version of the aircraft
is still yet to officially enter service and the time of making this video. When compared to other
types in the family, it’s a disappointing number. Consider this: Airbus has racked up orders for
nearly 7,900 aircraft across the entire A320neo family (A319, A320, and A321). Crunching the
numbers, sales for the A319neo account for less than 1% of overall orders for the family.
Some speculate that the similarly sized A220-300 is to blame as the jets actually have identical
maximum capacities while the A220-300 has a lower maximum takeoff weight, making it cheaper to
operate as many airports charge using this metric. However, an argument to counter this
‘cannibalization theory’ is that the A319ceo is relatively new. First delivered in 1996,
the oldest aircraft is about 24 years old. However, most A319s flying today are in the
neighborhood of 15 to 20 years old. Thus, its possible that airline customers hoping
to modernize their A319 fleets might just be waiting for the right time to do so.
If we limit our analysis to aircraft size, then there is no doubt about it: An A220-500 would
overlap with the A320neo in the exact same way that the A220-300 overlaps with the A319neo.
A larger version of the A220 would add six rows of seats,
expanding capacity to near 200 seats- almost identical to the max capacity of the A320neo.
Additionally,we would anticipate the A220-500 also having a lower max takeoff weight than the A320,
thus lowering its trip costs and making it a more attractive aircraft.
But is there more to the story than just size?
The A220 and A320 families are very different. Despite being sold under the Airbus banner,
the A220 was designed by Bombardier and thus is a different type altogether.
When we take this into account, we would imagine that airlines exclusively operating
A320 family types would try to remain within the family (think easyJet, Air Arabia, and AirAsia).
The same goes for operators that are keen to feature the A220- airBaltic and Breeze
Airways come to mind. Single-type fleets ensure efficiencies when it comes to crew training,
maintenance, spare parts, and more- something that is lost if a carrier has both the A220 and A320.
Air Canada, Air France, Delta Air Lines, and several other operators do operate both Airbus
types. However, their operations and fleets are already so diverse that they would prefer the
operational flexibility of having aircraft of various sizes. It’s also interesting to note
that most of the airlines operating A220 and A320 type jets are also operators of the A321.
This tells us that these carriers want to operate routes at opposite sides of the spectrum-
something that no single family of aircraft can do.
Delivery slots and production timeline is another factor-
something that will influence an airline one way or another. An additional consideration is
the ability to carry freight containers- a feature absent with the A220 family.
Therefore, at the end of the day, given the existing popularity of both aircraft, it would
seem as though Airbus could simply do well on two fronts- even if there is overlap in terms of size.
But what do you think? Is there a compelling argument that the
A220-500 would not affect sales of the A320neo? Let us know by leaving a comment.