Airbus silently marks 50th A220 delivery from Mobile |

It’s just been a single tweet by 'Airbus in the US' and likely reason for a small party as well, but otherwise Airbus paid little public attention in late August to yet another milestone in its production history: the delivery of the 50th A220 from its US assembly plant in Mobile (Alabama). The A220-300 was delivered to Breeze Airways on August 30, but Airbus shared the milestone on X only on September 3. Let’s have a closer look at Airbus’s smallest production line. Airbus silently marks 50th A220 delivery from Mobile. These fifty deliveries have happened within three years since the first A220 was delivered from Mobile to Delta Air Lines on October 22, 2020. The history of the A220 Final Assembly Line (FAL) goes back to October 17, 2017. That day, Airbus announced that it intended to take a 50.1 percent share in C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership, the joint venture between Bombardier and Investissement Quebec (IQ). The aircraft, while innovative and well-received since its launch in 2008, had proven to be too much of a financial burden to Bombardier. The transaction was closed on July 1, 2018, and nine days later, the Bombardier CSeries became the Airbus A220. Since February 2020, Airbus owns 75 percent and IQ 25 percent of Airbus Canada Limited Partnership. Both announced an additional $1.2 billion investment in early 2022. The first October 2017 announcement included this sentence: “Growing market for C Series results in second Final Assembly Line in Mobile, Alabama, serving U.S. customers.” Airbus planned to add an assembly line to Mobile, where it had started assembling the A320ceo family in September 2015 and delivered the first aircraft (to JetBlue) in April 2016. Later, the line was prepared to assemble A320neo-family aircraft as well and is producing A320neo’s and A321neo's now. Political reasons The reason to add an A220 line was for political reasons. Back in 2017, Bombardier was still involved in a legal battle with the US Department of Commerce after a complaint from Boeing, which accused the Canadian airframer of price dumping to win an order from Delta for 75 CS100s. The US Department (part of the Trump Administration) introduced a 292 percent import fee on each CSeries aircraft that was imported into the US, ruining the business case of Bombardier. Although the fee was dropped during a follow-on Court procedure in 2018, the level of uncertainty of US trade and competition rules was so high that Airbus was willing to invest in a second assembly line to protect its (potential) customer base in the US. All aircraft for non-US customers would continue to be assembled in Mirabel (Canada). Hence, the start of the groundbreaking for the new facility in Mobile in January 2019, resulted in the official opening of the building in May 2020. Component assemblies of the first A220 had already arrived in June 2019, with production to start two months later at a low pace in August. The A220 assembly in Mobile, seen here in August 2020, with the first aircraft 55069 on the line on the right. After sustaining some damage, it was 55070 that was delivered as the first one to Delta in October 2022. (Airbus) Modest rate The first frame to enter the line was 55069, an A220-300, as only -300s are assembled in Mobile. The smaller -100 is built exclusively in Mirabel. Work was in progress on this first aircraft for Delta Air Lines when it received some damage, which delayed its completion. Instead of 55069, it was 55070 that became the first Mobile-built A220 to be completed. The aircraft made its first flight on June 2, 2020, and was delivered to Delta on October 22. Mobile is producing A220s at a very modest rate. “The FAL in Mobile is currently producing two aircraft per month whereas the FAL in Mirabel is producing on average four aircraft per month. We were at rate 6 at the end of December 2022 and we have increased since but are not providing a specific number,” says Vicente Iglesias, Head of A220 program for Airbus in the US. “Airbus aims to produce 14 A220s per month in the middle of the decade between the final assembly lines in Mirabel and Mobile. The breakdown would be approximately ten aircraft in Mirabel and four in Mobile.” Breakdown by airline Airbus doesn’t provide a breakdown of aircraft numbers assembled in Mobile per year and customer, but AirInsight has reconstructed them using other sources (see table). In the first year, six A220-300s were delivered from Alabama, all in the fourth quarter. Five were for Delta, but JetBlue took the sixth aircraft on December 31, 2020. It was fittingly christened “Rob Dewar” to honor the man who as Vice President of the CSeries Integrated Product Development Team was involved since the program started in 2005, when the aircraft was still called C110 and C130. 2021 saw thirteen A220 deliveries from Mobile, including five for Delta, seven for JetBlue, and the first for David Neeleman’s new airline Breeze on December 28. In 2022, deliveries were up to twenty. Breeze added another ten aircraft to its fleet, JetBlue six, and Delta four. As of September 17, deliveries in 2023 stand at thirteen, including four for Delta Air Lines, four for JetBlue, and five for Breeze. This includes the 50th A220 assembled in Mobile with construction number 55217, which was delivered to the airline on August 30. With Airbus stating that Mobile is producing two aircraft per month, deliveries should reach at least twenty December. But like other programs, the A220 has been hit this year by delays coming from supply chain issues. To date, Delta has taken delivery of eighteen A220-300s, all produced in Mobile. (Delta Air Lines) Adding up the numbers, this makes eighteen A220 deliveries from Mobile since 2020 for Delta, eighteen for JetBlue, and sixteen for Breeze for a total of 52 A220 deliveries since the first one. Delta has taken delivery of all 45 A220-100s it has ordered but has received only eighteen out of 86 A220-300s on order. The score for JetBlue is eighteen A220-300s out of 100, and for Breeze sixteen out of eighty. This leaves a backlog for Mobile of 214 aircraft yet to be delivered to the three airlines. No other US airlines have ordered the type. While US-based, the nine A220s delivered so far to customers via Air Lease Corporation out of 66 on order have all been produced in Mirabel. Azorra has yet to announce customers for its twenty A220s on order. Including aircraft assembled in Mirabel, Airbus delivered 38 A220s in 2020, fifty in 2021, and 53 in 2022. Until August 31, Airbus had received orders for 95 A220-100 and ACJ TwoTwenty executive aircraft and delivered 56 of them. The bigger -300 is far more popular with 711 orders and 227 deliveries. Production complexity The A220 program is still losing money, mostly the result of the comparatively low production rate. Add to this the costs and complexity associated with running two assembly lines in two countries, including the delivery of components and assemblies to Mobile. The wings are assembled in Belfast (Ireland) by Spirit AeroSystems. “Wings and other parts come straight to Alabama via the Port of Mobile. The cockpit, forward, mid, and rear fuselages are trucked down from Mirabel,” says Iglesias. These fuselage sections come a long way. The center sections are produced by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation in China and first go by ship to Mirabel. Here, they are equipped with systems at a Pre-FAL line in Mirabel. “The pre-FAL section has been in service since January 10, 2022, using former Bombardier CRJ hangars (inspired by Airbus pre-FAL in Saint-Nazaire). This pre-FAL was required in order to support the A220 production ramp-up and lower costs,” says Daniel Wenninger, Head of the A220 program in Mirabel. A fuselage section of the first A220 arrives in Mobile in 2019. Running two assembly lines in different locations at low rates is one of the reasons that the program is still loss-making. (Airbus) “In the pre-FAL, you will find sub-component preparation lines that are used to deliver finished A220 center and rear fuselages to the Mirabel and Mobile final assembly lines, with systems and insulation installed, as well as floors fully closed feeding both the Mirabel and the Mobile FALs. Our Mobile final assembly line allows us to increase our production activities, and our pre-FAL allows us to perform our A220 subassembly activities in a pulsed line concept (versus a fixed station concept), therefore optimizing the overall A220 assembly cycles and gain in efficiency.” Or as Vicente Iglesias says: “This brand new pre-FAL feeds A220 sub-components to our Mirabel and Mobile final assembly lines. It is an important ramp-up enabler for the A220 Program.” Turning point Increasing the rate to fourteen aircraft per month by the middle of this decade should mark a turning point for the A220. As Daniel Wenninger says: “We don’t give specific timelines for reaching breakeven for our programs. We can confirm that the A220 production rate has more than doubled since the program joined the Airbus Family in July 2018, proving that we are on the right track to meet our objective of reaching the program’s maximum capacity of fourteen aircraft per month in the middle of the decade. When we reach max capacity in Mirabel and Mobile, we will be in a good position to have a view on the program’s profitability.” “More than 500 employees support the A220 final assembly line for Airbus in Mobile. Additionally, there are around 3.000 employees in Mirabel supporting the A220 Program,” says Vicente Iglesias. “Airbus announced earlier this year recruiting 700 people to support the A220 ramp-up in Mirabel. In 2023, Airbus plans to hire more than 800 new employees in the USA of which 2/3 will be for Commercial aircraft activities.” Currently, work is in progress on the second FAL for the A320neo/A321neo, which should be completed in late 2024 or early 2025. This summer, Airbus officially opened a new A321neo line in Toulouse. After the opening of a second line in Tianjin (China) in 2025, Airbus will have ten assembly lines across the globe for its best-selling family. This should be adequate to meet its production target of 75 neo's in 2026. Aerial picture of Airbus US in Mobile from May this year. Construction work continues as a second A320neo/A321neo line will become active by late 2024 or early 2025. (Airbus) A220 deliveries from Mobile: 2020: Deliveries 55070 (DL, October 22), 55075 (DL), 55080 (DL), 55084 (DL), 55085 (DL), 55099 ( 1st JetBlue Rob Dewar December 31) = 6 2021: 55069 (DL), 55096 (DL), 55101 (DL), 55104 (JB), 55107 (DL), 55108 (JB), 55113 (JB), 55115 (JB), 55120 (JB), 55124 (JB), 55128 (1st Breeze, December 28), 55132 (JB), 55142 (DL) = 13 2022: 55137 (Br), 55143 (Br), 55144 (JB), 55148 (Br), 55150 (JB), 55151 (Br), 55153 (DL), 55156 (Br), 55158 (JB), 55160 (Br), 55164 (JB), 55167 (Br), 55170 (DL), 55172 (Br), 55175 (DL), 55178 (Br), 55181 (JB), 55184 (Br), 55186 (JB), 55195 (DL) = 20 2023: 55189 (Br), 55192 (DL), 55199 (JB), 55202 (Br), 55204 (JB), 55206 (Br), 55207 (DL), 55209 (Br), 55211 (JB), 55212 (DL), 55214 (JB), 55217 (Br, 50th A220 Mobile), 55220 (DL) = 13 (DL = Delta Air Lines, JB = JetBlue, Br = Breeze, status September 17, 2023)

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