Villa Air FlyMe announced that the airline is working on acquiring two Airbus A319 jets to begin international flights to China and India.
Presently, the only local airline to operate jet aircraft is the national airline Maldivian. Maldivian has one A320 and one A321. Let’s take a look at the Airbus A319 variant.
The Airbus A319 belongs to the Airbus A320 family which is a series of narrow-body aircraft consisting of the A318, A319, A320, and the A321.
Launched in 1984, the A320 project was targeted to compete against the dominant Boeing 737 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 in the single-aisle market at the time.
Looking at the differences between the variants of the A320 family; the A321 is simply the stretched version of the A320 while the A318 and the A319 is the shorter version.
The A319 has the same optimised cabin cross-section as the other A320 Family members allowing the aircraft to have the widest single-aisle fuselage on the market.
The A321 has the largest capacity among the variants and can seat 185 passengers in a typical two-class seating while A320 can seat 150 passengers while the A319 can seat only 124 passengers.
However, with only a single class seating the A319 can seat 156 passengers. This configuration is commonly preferred by low-cost airlines which operate the aircraft type.
The national airline Maldivian’s A320 has 14 business class seating and 138 economy class seating while the A321 has 6 business class seating and 194 economy class seating.
The shorter body of the A319 allows it to lead over both the variants in range. The A319 has a range of 6,945 km (3,750 mi) while the A320 with a similar fuel capacity has a range of 6,112 km (3,300 mi). The A321 has a much shorter range of 5,926 km (3,200 mi).
The A319 is very popular for official government use and by private operators for executive use. There are 75 aircraft in operation in this type as of 2019. In total as of July 2019, 1,246 Airbus A319 aircraft are in service with 108 operators.
From the A320 Series if range is preferred there’s the A319 if capacity is preferred there’s the A321 and the A320 comes in between.
Maldivian uses the A320s to operate flights to India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, and more. Villa Air is to begin operations first to India and China.
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