Air Canada now has a fleet of 30 Airbus A220-300s after taking delivery of a new aircraft last week. Being an early customer for the type, the airline is expecting a total of 45 of these small narrowbodies by the end of 2025. Let's take a look at the delivery details of the latest aircraft.

Welcoming C-GVUO to the fleet

On June 18th, Airbus delivered Air Canada's 30th A220-300. The aircraft, registered C-GVUO, flew an uneventful flight from Montreal Mirabel (YMX) to Air Canada's largest hub, Toronto Pearson (YYZ). This flight took just under an hour, with the jet departing Mirabel at 11:40 and arriving in Toronto at 12:36.

While this is a fairly short delivery flight, this would probably be the second-shortest delivery service for an A220 built at Mirabel. That's because Air Canada also has a hub at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport - which is located just 33km from Airbus' Canadian A220 assembly facility. Indeed, driving by car would take less than 40 minutes to cover the 50km of road. If we take C-GNBE as an example, the one-year-old A220 was delivered from Mirabel to Trudeau on March 31st, 2021, with a flight time of just 13 minutes. This is a much shorter flight than delivering the same aircraft type to airBaltic, with a flight from Montreal to Riga taking roughly seven and a half hours.

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The delivery flight from Mirabel to Pearson. Photo: FlightRadar24.com

2/3rds complete for A220-300 order

With the delivery of this 30th aircraft, Air Canada's order for the Airbus A220-300 is now two-thirds complete. The airline first ordered the aircraft type back in February 2016 when it was still known as the Bombardier CSeries.

The Canadian carrier has, for the most part, held firm to this order for 45 aircraft, although this waivered slightly during the pandemic. It was back in November 2020 that Air Canada announced that it would be canceling part of its order, reducing its commitment by 12 jets amid the health crisis and its devastating impact on the travel industry. However, when the situation began to improve over the course of 2021, the carrier took the small step of reversing the cancelation of two A220s. Just a few months later, in February 2022, the airline announced that it was reinstating its order for all 12 of the previously canceled jets.

Speaking about the change of direction, newly installed Air Canada President and CEO Michael Rousseau stated the following in November 2021:

"We are encouraged by the favorable revenue and traffic trends in the third quarter, with strong increases in key passenger geographic segments, a record cargo performance, and significant improvements in both Air Canada Vacations and Aeroplan,"

The remaining 15 aircraft will arrive between now and 2025.

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The airline took delivery of its first A220 in 2019. Photo: Air Canada

Long-and-skinny exemplified

The A220 is well-suited to Canada's domestic aviation scene. With a relatively small population for its massive territory, long-and-skinny trans-continental services would benefit greatly from an efficient performer like the Airbus A220-300. Good examples of such Air Canada services include flights from Montreal to Kelowna, San Diego, and Seattle.

Have you flown on the Airbus A220 yet? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.