Airbus achieves major A330 milestone after 1,500 deliveries

The Airbus A330 family, the wings for which are made in the UK, has delivered its 1,500^th aircraft in September to Delta Air Lines.

The application of incremental innovations, since its service entry, has resulted in the A330’s ongoing versatility, functionality, increased payload-range with state-of-the-art airspace cabin comfort and 4^th generation IFE.

Even before its first flight in 1992, the original A330-300 was a pioneer. It was Airbus' first long-range aircraft and the first programme to have an integrated final assembly facility with the FAL, the paintshop and cabin furnishing in the same place.

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Today the A330neo builds on the A330ceo’s proven credentials, saving airlines around 25% fuel burn per seat compared with previous-generation aircraft.

Comprising two versions – the A330-900 (which first entered service in November 2018 with TAP) and the smaller A330-800 (which enters service in the coming weeks) – the NEO incorporates a new high-aspect ratio wing with carbon fibre wing tips, the latest-generation Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines with a 10:1 bypass ratio, more seats and new airspace cabin features such as fully-variable colour LED mood lighting.

The newest A330neo variant with a 251t maximum takeoff weight can fly around 8,000nm with a full passenger load – around twice as far as the very first 212t A330-300 had achieved.

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The A330neo is a very quiet aircraft, exceeding the most stringent industry regulations – for example, achieving 16dB lower noise margin relative to ICAO Chapter 4.

By retaining the same type rating and having 95% spares commonality it can seamlessly fit into any existing A330 fleet, while its new airspace cabin offers ideal space for passengers and airlines.

The A330neo also takes real-time health monitoring and predictive maintenance to the next level with Airbus’s advanced Skywise big-data analytics capabilities, helping to transform unplanned maintenance events into plannable ones so the airline’s flight schedules are not interrupted.

Airbus www.airbus.com