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- Business Insider toured a JetBlue Airbus A220 at June’s Paris Air Show.
- The same month, it began its longest route yet for the airline, from Boston to Vancouver.
- Its range and seating capacity fill a useful market beyond a typical regional jet.
JetBlue is mostly known for flying Airbus A320s, but some routes require a different type of single-aisle plane.
The airline has around 50 Airbus A220s, which are ideal for serving some less popular routes.
With 140 seats and a 3,800-mile range, it serves destinations that are either too far away or still have too much demand for a smaller regional jet. A rare five-abreast seat layout also means fewer middle seats.
Business Insider toured one of these planes at the Paris Air Show last month, checking out the spacious cabin, generous legroom, and impressive entertainment system.
In June, JetBlue also began operating the A220 on flights between Boston and Vancouver — its longest route yet at roughly 2,500 miles.
Along with Delta Air Lines and Breeze Airways, JetBlue is one of just three US airlines to use the A220.
Here’s what it’s like on board, and how duties imposed during the first Trump administration partially led to Airbus taking over the jet program for just 1 Canadian dollar.
Airbus exhibited a JetBlue A220 at June’s Paris Air Show.
The 3,800-mile range is enough to fly transatlantic, but such routes are usually popular enough that airlines want more seats.
Its competitors include the smallest variation of the Boeing 737 and Embraer’s E195-E2.
The same month, JetBlue began its longest route using an A220 — between Boston and Vancouver.
Vancouver and Boston are about 2,500 miles apart, and the flight can take up to six hours. JetBlue previously operated this route until last September using the larger Airbus A321.
According to data from the aviation analytics firm Cirium, this is also the fifth-longest A220 route in the world. The title belongs to Air Baltic’s 2,684-mile journey between Dubai and Latvia.
A splash of colour and the airline’s logo made boarding feel more welcoming than a barebones plane.
Blue lighting throughout the cabin also added to the atmosphere on board. JetBlue says the custom mood lighting changes through the day.
With a more spacious cabin than competing aircraft, the A220 is configured in a rare 2-3 layout.
Cabins like this used to be more common on old airplanes like those made by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997. There are fewer than 100 Boeing 717s still in service, a jet which was originally known as the MD-95.
Other than the A220, Russia’s Superjet 100 is the only jet still being built with a 2-3 layout.
And yet, the seats are still quite large.
JetBlue says the A220 has the widest coach seats of any single-aisle aircraft, measuring 18 inches.
Couples or solo travelers might also like the fact that there are fewer middle seats.
These seats are half an inch narrower than the 18-inch seats found in the groups of three.
The first four rows are dedicated to premium seats.
In addition to up to seven inches of extra legroom, “EvenMore” comes with early boarding, free alcoholic drinks, and priority security at some airports.
There are also another couple of rows by the overwing emergency exits, for a total of 30 premium seats.
The relatively large cabin also means there’s plenty of overhead bin space — with more improvements on the way.
Airbus says its coming “Airspace” cabin would have enough bin space for every A220 passenger to store a carry-on.
The coach seats offered fairly generous legroom.
The pitch, which is the distance between the same spot on one seat and the one in front, is 32 inches. That’s typically among the most you can find in economy.
I was also impressed by JetBlue’s in-flight entertainment system.
JetBlue also offers free WiFi, and its A220s have USB-C, USB-A, and AC power for charging.
It also has live TV on all of its planes, although this type has only 18 channels compared to over 100 on its A321s. Delta only has live TV on select planes, excluding its A220s.
Two bathrooms at the rear were also more spacious than I expected.
Most regional planes, like the Embraer 190, have one bathroom at the back, which can feel a bit cramped.
The A220 was first built by Bombardier, but Airbus bought the program for 1 Canadian dollar.
Before it was the A220, it began as Bombardier’s CSeries program, which launched in 2008. The plane entered service in 2016.
It was already facing financial difficulties due to overspending, development delays, and stiff competition with the Boeing 737-700.
Then, in 2017, Boeing accused Bombardier of unfairly trying to increase its market share by selling dozens to Delta for less than their production cost, a practice known as dumping.
The US government then imposed duties totaling 292%. It said around 80% was due to the dumping petition and the rest due to subsidies by the Canadian government.
Bombardier rejected the allegations at the time and said: “The magnitude of the proposed duty is absurd and divorced from the reality about the financing of multibillion-dollar aircraft programs.”
In October, Airbus paid 1 Canadian dollar to take a controlling stake in the program in 2017, renaming it the A220 a year later. It also agreed to build many of the planes at its production line in Mobile, Alabama.
Since Donald Trump announced his tariff plan, trade deals with the UK, European Union, and Brazil have included exemptions for planes.
Read the full article here
