Le first Airbus A220 for Air France has left the Airbus paint shops near Montreal, where it has been given the new Air France colours. It features the winged seahorse, the historic symbol of the airline.
L'Airbus A220 will seat 148 passengers in a 3-2 cab configuration. Each seat will have two USB ports. Customers will have wifi access from their personal devices.
The Airbus A220 meets the company's ambitious environmental criteria. By being lighter thanks to the use of composite materials, the aircraft consumes 20% less fuel than current Airbus models. Its noise footprint is reduced by 34%.
The aircraft will therefore play a key role in achieving Air France's sustainable development objectives. These objectives include 50% reduction in CO2 emissions in absolute terms on the domestic network from Paris-Orly and from region to region by 2024. And a reduction of 50% in CO2 emissions per passenger/km by 2030.
Flight safety at the heart of the arrival of the Airbus A220
Before transporting Air France customers, the aircraft will undergo a series of ground and flight tests. On arrival, it will be used for over a month to train the airline's flight crews, some of whom began the so-called "type qualification" process last summer.
As it does every time a new type of aircraft enters the fleet, Air France has set up two "hard cores". The first for pilots, the second for cabin crew. Qualified beforehand, these crew members will then have the task of training their other colleagues. The pilots, for their part, undergo training on a flight simulator. Once the first aircraft has been delivered to Air France, this simulator training will be accompanied by around twenty flights in real conditions. Eventually, almost 700 Air France pilots will be qualified on this aircraft..
Meanwhile, some fifty cabin crew are completing training to be operational immediately. They will complete the practical flight training for the cabin crews as soon as the A220 comes on line. The airline will train around 2,500 flight attendants.
