Where the A220 flies: opening routes others cannot

In the forests of northern Estonia, in the dark of a cold November morning, passengers boarded an Airbus A220 in Tallinn. And, about seven hours later, they stepped off that flight into the balmy Atlantic air of Tenerife, more than 4,600 km to the south, in the Canary Islands. 

A220-300 In flight - Tallinn

There was no plane change or long wait in a crowded city hub somewhere in between where they departed and where they wanted to be. There was no hurried travel between gates, fingers crossed they made the connecting flight. Just a single aircraft and a direct flight from a quiet, cold city in the north to a lively island in the warm sun.

Until a few years ago, that route did not exist. The demand was there, but it was modest, never quite enough to fill a large jet, and too far for a smaller aircraft to reach. Travellers from Tallinn had to fly to a busier hub first, change planes, and wait. Or, they didn’t make the trip at all.

Now, that route is a direct one. A new city pair established by airBaltic. But the advent of an aircraft, the Airbus A220, made that route possible, and so many more. 

Since entering service in 2016, the A220 has created more than 400 new routes, carried more than 240 million passengers, and logged over 3.6 million flight hours across 25 operators on five continents. 

The market gap the A220 was built to fill

For decades, a gap existed in the middle of the aviation market. There was a whole category of routes that no aircraft could serve well: city pairs with real demand but not quite enough to justify a large narrowbody, and distances too great for an older regional jet to cover comfortably. Those routes were left underserved, flown with a connection through a distant hub, or simply never flown at all.

The A220 was designed to close that gap. Built from a clean sheet, sized precisely for the 100-to-160-seat market, it brought together the range to fly long and the economics to make thinner routes work.

The goal was to start really from a clean sheet. We wanted to have the best 100 to 160-passenger aircraft that has ever been built.

Jean-François Parent, A220 Chief Engineer

With a range of up to 3,600 nautical miles and a cabin that brings widebody comfort to a single-aisle frame, the A220 didn’t just fly the routes others flew. It opened ones that previously were not possible. Tallinn to Tenerife is but one. 

Long-haul leisure routes from smaller cities, no hub required

This kind of route serves the distant holiday destination that used to require a detour.

These are long, thin routes, secondary cities joined directly to the places people actually want to go, without passing through a mega-hub on the way. From Riga, airBaltic now flies the A220 nonstop to Dubai, nearly 4,300 km to the Gulf, a route no other airline offers direct. Across the Atlantic, Breeze Airways flies direct from Columbus, Ohio, to the beaches of Punta Cana, skipping the coastal gateways that such a journey once required.

Route after route, the idea and the economics persist and are proven over and over again. A city with genuine demand but modest volume, a destination a long way off, and an aircraft finally able to directly connect the two. For the traveller, the change is simple but meaningful: the holiday begins at a local airport instead of on the last leg of a multi-aircraft journey. The A220's range turns a trip that once meant an unavoidable connection, and delayed gratification, into a direct line to warmer climes.

A220 - 300 - Take off

Reaching city-centre airports others cannot 

The routes ending in a city centre ask something different of the A220. They don’t just call for range, but also for precision.

Airports associated with some of the world's most well-known cities are also the most difficult to navigate. London City Airport sits in the old Royal Docks, minutes from the financial district, boxed in by water and buildings. Its runway is short. Its approach is famously steep, descending at 5.5 degrees against the three degrees of an ordinary glide path. Very few aircraft are certified to fly it at all.

The A220-100 is one of them, and it is the largest aircraft able to operate in that tight, urban space. SWISS flies it into London City, and into Florence, another airport hemmed in by terrain and narrow margins. The A220 is the only in-production aircraft in its class able to perform both these steep approaches and genuine long-range flying. It can slip into the centre of a city in the morning and cross a continent in the evening.

London city airport - A220-100

Connecting remote and regional destinations, directly

This type of route is maybe the most compelling of these three. These are the routes that reach communities long isolated by distance, or connect places too remote to reach directly, until now.

Air Tanzania flies the A220 nonstop from Dar es Salaam across the Indian Ocean to Mumbai, linking East Africa directly to the Indian subcontinent. Air Niugini has opened a direct service between Port Moresby and Sydney, a connection that had never existed before. And across the vast, sparse geography of Australia, QantasLink uses the A220 to join regional communities that had long been separated by sheer distance.

A220 Uluru Australia Qantas Link

These are not glamorous routes, but something more meaningful. They are routes that create connections that change what is possible for the people at either end, joining places, and people that the map had always kept apart.

The A220’s story continues: new routes, new journeys, and new connections   

A northern town to a southern beach. A runway in the heart of London. An ocean crossing from Africa to India. A remote community finally joined the world. Each one a place brought closer, a journey made simpler, a connection made that recently did not exist. 

It began, as these things often do, with a single flight on a single day. From Tallinn, or Dar es Salaam, or Port Moresby, the story is the same: an aircraft built to go where others could not. 

With each new route it opens, the A220 adds to the map. It opens the world, creating new connections and putting more places and people within direct reach of each other.