Qantas’s first A220 is shown here at Canberra International Airport on 23 February 2024.

The first Airbus A220-300 regional airliner for Qantas subsidiary QantasLink is painted in a striking green First Nations art colour scheme.

The aircraft made its first flight in early December 2023 and, after a few manufacturer check-flights, was handed over to Qantas by manufacturer Airbus at its Mirabel facility near Montreal on 15 December.

The A220 will replace the Boeing 717 in the QantasLink fleet and will be a regular visitor to Canberra.

Originally developed as the CSeries by Bombardier in Canada, Airbus took a majority stake in the program after a 2017 trade dispute between Canada and the US and a number of financial bailouts of the program by the Canadian federal and Ontario provincial governments.

The CSeries was designed to be built in two models, the CS100 and CS300 with 100 and 130 seats respectively – now designated the A220-100 and A220-300. There are some 850 A220s in service or on order worldwide, and they are replacing airliners such as the 717, Fokker 70 and 100, Embraer E170/175/190, older Boeing 737-200/300/500/600/700 series and Airbus A318/A319 models, and other jet airliners in the 100-150-seat category.

QantasLink’s A220s have a range of 6,390 kilometres – more than twice that of the 717s they will replace, while using 25 per cent less fuel and emissions. The aircraft will be configured with 137 seats including 10 business class and 127 economy class.

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