Airbus announced today that the European plane maker delivered its 7,000th aircraft, an A321, to US Airways – the airline that operates the largest fleet of Airbus aircraft in the world. This milestone comes just two years after the delivery of Airbus’ 6,000th aircraft.
The 1,000th Airbus delivery was an A340-300 that went to Air France in 1993, nineteen years after the first Airbus aircraft was delivered – an A300B2 also to Air France, in 1974.
The 2,000th delivery was six years later in 1999. It took half that time, just three years, to get to the 3,000th delivery in 2002 and three more years to reach 4,000 deliveries. The tempo went up another notch taking Airbus only two years to hand over its 5,000th aircraft, an A330-200 to Qantas in December 2007. The 6,000th Airbus was an A380 which was delivered to Emirates in January 2010.
By the end of the year, US Airways will operate a fleet of 93 A319s, 72 A320s, 63 A321s and 16 A330s. The airline also has firm orders for additional 58 A320 Family aircraft, eight A330 aircraft and 22 A350 XWBs on backlog.
Photos – The 7,000th Airbus aircraft
Photos: (c) 2011 Airbus S.A.S.