First ‘Lagardère A321neo’ delivered to Pegasus after 14 months in assembly

Fourteen months since the first fuselage sections entered the line, Airbus has finally delivered the A321neo that has been assembled in the former A380 Jean-Luc Lagardère complex in Toulouse. The aircraft was delivered on Wednesday to Pegasus Airlines as its 41^st A321neo.

When AirInsight visited Airbus

in February for the 2022 annual results press conference, we were offered a tour of the new final assembly facility. The forward and center/aft fuselage sections were already in stations 42 and 43, having arrived in October 2022. At the time, Airbus was unwilling to confirm that MSN11281 was indeed destined for Pegasus.

The airframe slowly progressed through the different assembly stations 40, 37, and 35, before it was largely complete and rolled on its own wheels to one of the bays at station 25 for cabin outfitting.  From there, aircraft go to the paint shop and receive their engines. “The first aircraft will have a specific long lead time, because the objective is to make sure that the industrial system is ok, to test it, to prove it, so we can lay the right foundations for a steep ramp up,” said Head of A320 FAL in Toulouse, Marion Smeyers, in February.