CNN Staff
Updated 10:28 AM EDT, Thu May 19, 2016
What we know about the Airbus A320
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Editor’s Note: This story was first published in March 2015 and has been updated with new information.
Story highlights
There have been more than 12,000 orders for the Airbus A320 family
The plane is the single-aisle rival to Boeing's 737
A320 is "safer than most aircraft out there now," says aviation expert
CNN —
The A320 has for several decades been a key component in the rivalry between manufacturers Airbus and Boeing.
The twin-engined A320 entered service in 1988, some two decades after its single-aisle rival, Boeing’s 737.
As of April 2016 there have been 12,499 orders for the A320, with 7,020 deliveries to date and slightly fewer aircraft flying globally by 318 operators.
Airbus says the entire fleet has accumulated 150 million flight hours in more than 85 million flights.
The A320 family ranges from the smaller A318 (about 100 seats), to the upgraded A321 (about 185 to 220 passengers depending on the class configuration).
The short to medium-range A320 is the most popular version with a range of about 3,300 nautical miles or 6,150 kilometers. It has a wingspan of 35.8 meters (with wing fins called sharklets), a length of 37.57 meters and a maximum payload of 16.6 tonnes, according to Airbus.
Fantastic safety record
According to information from the Aviation Safety Network accident database, there have been 56 incidents involving the A320.
A recovery crew works among debris of Germanwings Flight 9525 at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on Friday, April 3. The crash killed all 150 people aboard and has raised questions about the co-pilot's mental state.
French Gen. David Galtier holds up a picture of the second black box from Germanwings 9525 during a news conference in Marseille, France, on Thursday, April 2. The flight data recorder shows that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz purposely used the controls to speed up the plane's descent, investigators said.
Rescue workers recover debris from the crash site in the French Alps on Tuesday, March 31. Flight 9525 was traveling from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany, when it crashed.
A helicopter drops rescue workers next to crash debris near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on Sunday, March 29.
Forensic experts work near the crash site on Thursday, March 26.
Journalists stand in front of the Westerwald airfield in Montabaur, Germany, on March 27. Lubitz reportedly learned to fly here.
Investigators carry a computer from the home of Lubitz's parents in Montabaur, Germany, on Thursday, March 26.
A police officer stands guard March 26 at an apartment building where Lubitz was thought to have lived in Dusseldorf.
A helicopter lifts a rescue worker from the crash site on March 26.
Rescue workers continue to search the site of the crash on March 26.
Search-and-rescue teams land near the crash site on Wednesday, March 25.
Debris from the plane is seen along a mountainside on March 25.
French military personnel move up a mountainside March 25 near Seyne-les-Alpes.
The cockpit voice recorder of the Germanwings jet appears in this photo provided by the French air accident investigation bureau on March 25. The device is designed to capture all sounds on a plane's flight deck.
A helicopter comes in to land near Seyne-les-Alpes, the staging ground for search efforts, on March 25.
Rescue workers and members of the French Gendarmerie gather in Seyne-les-Alpes on Tuesday, March 24, as search-and-rescue teams struggle to reach the remote crash.
Wreckage is seen at the crash site on March 24.
Response teams gather in Seyne-les-Alpes on March 24.
Relatives of the flight's passengers arrive at the airport in Barcelona on March 24.
People hold hands walking through the Dusseldorf Airport on March 24.
The arrivals board at the Dusseldorf Airport shows Germanwings Flight 9525 without a status on March 24.
People arrive at the Dusseldorf Airport on March 24.
An employee of Swissport, the handling agent of Germanwings flights from Barcelona, speaks by phone at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport on March 24.
Relatives of people involved in the crash arrive at the Barcelona airport on March 24.
A man in Madrid looks at a monitor with a map, released from the Flightradar24 website, showing the point where the plane's radar signal went missing.
This undated file photo shows the Germanwings Airbus A320 that crashed. Germanwings is a low-cost airline owned by the Lufthansa Group.
Germanwings plane crashes in France
In one of the most recent in March 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed in the southern French Alps when co-pilot Andreas Lubitz made a deliberate effort to destroy the plane.
In December 2014, an Airbus A320 operated by AirAsia Indonesia crashed into the Java Sea en route from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore. All 162 people on board Flight QZ8501 were killed.
“The A320 has a fantastic safety record,” said Phil Seymour, the president of the International Bureau of Aviation. “There have been a couple of incidents, but generally speaking, they’re safer than most aircraft out there now.”
Retirement age
“Airlines would usually consider retiring an aircraft at the 25-30 years point because maintenance costs increase beyond that.
“These things fly day-in and day-out and are designed to go on and on. Airlines usually only decide to retire them because maybe there’s a younger aircraft that doesn’t use as much fuel and doesn’t cost so much to run.”
The A320 is a twin engine single aisle aircraft seating 150 passengers in a standard two classes configuration. The first A320 entered service in March 1988. By the end of February 2015 nearly 6,200 A320 Family aircraft were in operation worldwide. To date, the entire fleet has accumulated some 150 million flight hours in over 85 million flights.
The worst A320 incident in terms of fatalities was the 2007 crash of a TAM Linhas Aereas plane that killed all 187 on board, plus a further 12 people on the ground when it failed to stop and went off the runway during landing in Sao Paulo in wet conditions.
In 2009, in an incident known as the “Miracle on the Hudson, pilot Chesley Sullenberger landed a U.S. Airways A320 on the Hudson River in New York when the plane lost power in its engines after hitting a flock of geese. All on board survived.
CNN’s Barry Neild contributed to this report.
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