Who is still flying the oldest A319s?

The Airbus A319 is a member of the A320 family of short- to medium-range, narrow body airliners whose origin dates back to 1977 with the establishment of the Joint European Transport (JET) programme involving Aerospatiale of France, British Aerospace, and Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohmr and Fokker-VFW from Germany. Although they were all partners in the Airbus consortium at the time, the JET programme was not initially an official Airbus project. Their focus was to develop a new 130-170 seat airliner. The programme was eventually transferred to Airbus who evaluated different concepts for the 125-180 seat aircraft market. Three classes of concept aircraft emerged called the Single Aisle Series SA1, SA2 and SA3, which evolved into the A319, A320 and A321 respectively.

British Airways A319-131, G-EUPD, painted in the ‘Olympic Dove’ special livery (Nigel Richardson)

The A319 is 12ft 3ins (3.73m) shorter than the A320, the first of the single aisle family of aircraft to be developed. It has an identical wing form and, in most other respects, it is identical, with 95% commonality with the other A320 family members, although its construction uses a greater proportion of composite materials than the A320. The original variant of the A319, the A319ceo (current engine option) is powered by fuel-efficient, new generation turbofan engines – either the CFM International CFM56 or the International Aero Engines (IAE) V2500s. It can accommodate between 110 and 156 passengers and has a range up to 3750nm (6,945km).

The first A319 was rolled out at Airbus’s Hamburg plant on 24 August 1995 and made its first flight the following day. Certification for the CFM56-powered variant was obtained in April 1996 after 350 flying hours and Swissair, the launch customer of the A319, received its first aircraft on 25 April 1996.

The oldest A319 in service, C-FYNS of Air Canada Rouge (Eddie Maloney, distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence)

Lufthansa’s oldest A319-114 in service, D-AILA (Nigel Richardson)

A total of 1,487 A319ceos have been produced since 1996. Just over 50% (110 aircraft) of the older A319s, built over 23 years ago, remain in service today. The oldest A319 currently operational is C-FYNS (c/n 572) of Air Canada Rouge. The aircraft made its first flight at the end of October 1995 and was delivered to Air Canada in July 1997. Lufthansa has some of the oldest A319s still flying including three aircraft that entered service in 1996. The oldest is D-AILA (c/n 609), which first flew on 24 June 1996 and was delivered to Lufthansa the following month. D-AILE (c/n 627) and D-AILF (c/n 636) first took to the air in November 1996 and were delivered in November and December respectively. The carriers operating the largest number of ‘older’ A319s are American Airlines (31) and United Airlines (29). British Airways’ oldest A319 is G-EUPD (c/n 1142), however, the aircraft has been stored in Madrid since July 2022.

Oldest A319 Operators

Croatia Airlines A319-112, 9A-CTG (Mark Harkin, distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0)

Current operators of A319s produced before 2000 and numbers of aircraft in service are:

Source: planespotters.net

Future of the A319

A319-115, TC-ANA, of the Albania Government (Anna Zvereva, distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0)

In 2006, Airbus began working on improvements to the A320 family of aircraft which included new generation engines (neo – new engine option) – either the CFM International LEAP-1A or the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G engines – to reduce fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, and sharklets as standard on the wingtips which can lead to a reduction in fuel burn. The A319neo was the last of the A320neo family variants to make its maiden flight in March 2017. Uptake of the A319neo by airlines has been the slowest of all the A320neo family variants, with only 92 orders by April 2023.

Title Image: TAP Air Portugal A319-111, CS-TTN (Alf van Beem)