Airbus A320

Airbus launched the A320 in March 1984 to break the American grip on the single-aisle market. It won that fight with radical new technology rather than lower prices. The jet first flew on February 22, 1987, and Air France put it into service in April 1988. Nothing else flying then worked quite the way it did. The gamble redefined how airliners have been built ever since.

It was the first airliner with digital fly-by-wire controls, where computers read the pilot's inputs and move the surfaces. Control yokes gave way to small side-mounted sticks. Built-in envelope protection stops crews from pushing the jet past safe limits. Airlines got a machine that was lighter, simpler to fly and easier to maintain. Every Airbus since has followed the same approach. Rivals took years to copy the idea.

Sales grew through the 1990s and 2000s as the A320 became a family running from A318 to A321, all under one type rating. easyJet, Vueling and IndiGo standardized on it. In 2019 the family passed the Boeing 737 as the best-selling airliner family in history. Production runs in Toulouse, Hamburg, Tianjin and Mobile, and more than 10,000 have been delivered. Thousands of ceo-model jets still fly short-haul routes.

Two CFM56-5B or IAE V2500 turbofans hang under a conventional low wing. Early jets carried small wingtip fences, while later builds got taller sharklets.

Both the engine and wing choices were kept deliberately simple. The two-crew glass cockpit is shared across the whole family, so a single type rating covers the A318, A319, A320 and A321.

The cabin measures 3.95 meters across, about seven inches more than a 737's. That extra width allows 18-inch economy seats and wider aisles. Usual seating runs from 150 to 186 passengers, depending on the layout an airline chooses.