Airbus A320

If you have flown from Dublin to somewhere in Europe, there is a fair chance you have sat inside one of these. The A320 family is really four aircraft: the A318, A319, A320 and A321. They share one cockpit and one set of operating procedures, so a pilot with a single type rating can fly all four [1]. What mostly changes is the length of the tube behind the flight deck.

This article is about the originals, now known as the A320ceo, for "current engine option" [13]. Their re-engined successors have their own article. Airbus built 8,101 of the originals [6]. Airbus counts both generations together, and by the end of August 2026 the whole family had 20,418 orders and 12,841 deliveries, with 11,407 in service [7].

A computer between the pilot and the wings

The A320 first flew on 22 February 1987 [1] [2]. European certification followed on 26 February 1988 [2] [3], and Air France took the first deliveries that spring [2].

The shape was conventional. The controls were not. Airbus describes the A320 as the first commercial aircraft to use full digital fly-by-wire, replacing traditional manual controls with electronic signals [1]. In other words, when the pilot asks the aircraft to turn, the request travels as data rather than as a tug on a cable, and the family pioneered that arrangement in airliners [3].

The other change is visible from the jump seat. Instead of a traditional yoke, each pilot has a side-stick [1]. It became an Airbus habit: the same cockpit design is shared across the company's aircraft, so pilots can move between types more easily [1].

One cockpit, four lengths

The first stretch came quickly. Airbus launched the A321 on 24 November 1988 [4], and it first flew from the Hamburg Finkenwerder plant on 11 March 1993 [3] [4]. Lufthansa put it into service in January 1994 [3] [4]. It is 6.94 m longer than the A320 and can seat up to 224 people in a single-class cabin [4]. That makes it about 44.5 m long, against 37.57 m for the A320 [3] [14].

Going the other way, the shortened A319 entered service in 1996 [3] [5]. The smallest of the lot, the A318, was launched on 26 April 1999 and first flew on 15 January 2002 [3] [5]. It stayed rare: Flightradar24 counts 81 orders before production ended in 2013 [5].

Every member of the original family was offered with a choice of CFM56 or IAE V2500 engines [2] [3]. From 2012, Airbus added Sharklets, tall upturned wingtips that trim fuel burn [2] [3]. Airbus credits them with saving up to 4% in fuel [1]. The first Sharklet-equipped A320 went to Indonesia AirAsia on 21 December 2012 [3].

Production of the originals ended in 2021 [2]. The last new original-engine aircraft, an A321 for Delta Air Lines, was delivered on 16 December 2021 and ferried from Airbus's plant at Mobile, Alabama, to Minneapolis [3] [6].

How to spot one

From the ground, start by ruling out the aircraft it is most often confused with, the Boeing 737-800.

• The cockpit windows. The rearmost cockpit side window on the A320 has a clipped top corner, a small "missing corner" that is easy to see in a photo [9].
• The engines. A320 nacelles are round. The 737-800's have a flattened bottom to clear the ground [9].

Then work out which member of the family you have:

• Count the overwing exits. An A319 has one on each side, and an A320 has two [8]. easyJet's A319s are the exception, with extra exits for their dense cabins [8].
• Count the doors. An A321 has four doors along each side [8], and its overwing exits were enlarged and moved to sit in front of and behind the wing [3].
• Look at the fin. The A318's tail looks too tall for its short body [8].

To tell an original from a neo, look at the engines and the wingtips. Neo engines are much larger in diameter [8]. Every neo has Sharklets, but only some originals do [8]. The older ones have small wingtip fences instead [10], so a fence means an original. Take care with a Sharklet in silhouette: it looks very like the blended winglet on many 737s [10].

If the Airbus in front of you has four cockpit windows rather than the usual six, it is not an A320 at all but an Airbus A220 [8].

Over Ireland

Aer Lingus is the operator to look for. When its first A321LR arrived in July 2019, it already flew 37 A320 family aircraft [11]. It began replacing them with A320neos in September 2022, retiring two older A320s as the first two new ones arrived [12].

The rarest member had an Irish connection too. British Airways flew two all-business-class A318s on a London City to New York service via Shannon, and retired the last of them in March 2020 [5].

From the archive

The A320 family can carry cargo in containers below the passenger cabin, an option Airbus highlights as unusual among single-aisle airliners. [15]

The family grew in both directions: the A321 reached Lufthansa in January 1994, the A319 reached Swissair in April 1996, and the tiny A318 reached Frontier in July 2003. [15]

In photographs

Look closer at the shapes, details and liveries. Every photograph links to its original and credits its creator.

Drawings and original documents

Existing published drawings are credited below. These are reference illustrations, not manufacturing blueprints.

• A320 airport and maintenance planning drawings, July 2026

  Airbus’s own technical reference, including aircraft dimensions, cabin cross-sections, door positions, ground clearances and servicing diagrams. These are manufacturer planning drawings.

• A320 Family facts and programme timeline, June 2026

  Airbus’s illustrated family backgrounder records the first deliveries of the A320, A321, A319 and A318, alongside dimensions for both engine generations.