The first U.S.-assembled Airbus A220 jet has been delivered to Delta Air Lines from Mobile, Alabama.
Delta said the A220-300′s first flights will be Nov. 10, between Salt Lake City and Houston.
Airbus, which is headquartered in France, said the delivery highlights its expansion in North America. The company opened its Mobile plant in 2015 and later added the A220 assembly line.
Delta has ordered 95 A220 jets and is the largest customer for the aircraft type. It has already taken delivery of 31 of them from the primary Airbus A220 final assembly line in Mirabel, Quebec, all 109-seat A220-100s. This is its first of the larger 130-seat A220-300 the airline is adding to the fleet.
Delta has been buying new planes to replace older regional jets and narrow-body planes. Compared to smaller aircraft it is replacing, the A220 has larger overhead bins, wider seats and bigger windows, as well as a window in the back lavatory.
Delta plans to retire its 50-seat CRJ-200 regional jets by December 2023 and will retire its 110-seat Boeing 717s by December 2025. It has already retired the MD-88 and MD-90 fleets earlier this year.
The A220 was previously known as the Bombardier C Series CS100, before Airbus bought a majority stake in the C Series business, paving the way to its assembly in the United States.
The C Series was at the center of a heated trade dispute in 2018 when the Trump administration proposed tariffs of more than 200% on the Bombardier jets.
When Airbus bought a majority stake in the Bombardier C Series business, it said it planned to eventually begin final assembly of the planes at the Airbus plant in Mobile.
The U.S. International Trade Commission later overturned the tariffs on Montreal-based Bombardier.
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