The Airbus A330 family, the wings for which are made in the UK, has delivered its 1,500th 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 4th 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.
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.
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