Air France has officially introduced the Airbus A220-300 into its lineup. The new aircraft, registered as F-HZUA, operated its first commercial flight between Paris (CDG) and Berlin (BER) in the morning of October 31, 2021.
Later it returned to Paris, before completing another trip to Venice (VCE) and back.
According to the Air France press release, the aircraft is going to be used on routes to Barcelona, Madrid and Milan in the following days.
The French flag carrier ordered 60 A220-300s in 2019, making the second-largest order of the type after jetBlue. The new aircraft are going to replace the airline’s ageing A318s, A319s and some of the A320s.
F-HZUA, the first aircraft of the batch, was built at the former Bombardier factory in Montréal and delivered to France in September 2021. It has been named “Le Bourget”, continuing Air France’s tradition of naming its aircraft after cities.
Since September, Le Bourget has been busy performing over 100 training flights to various destinations in France and neighboring countries.
According to Radarbox data, at least one of Air France’s other A220s – the F-HZUC – is being prepared for test flights in Canada.