The A220 – with bigger seats, extra legroom and larger toilets – landed at Farnborough Airshow in the UK yesterday.
And we wasted no time in boarding the newly-branded Airbus jet that has already has bulked up an order book of hundreds.
The 160-seat passenger jet boasts features that economy travellers can only dream of today – bigger seats and more legroom.
When our near 6ft tall reporter sat in one of the window seats, he could stretch his legs out completely under the seat in front.
And the up-to-19-inch wide seats, larger than most long haul planes, allowed him to place his arms either side of him within the arm rests.
***SEE INSIDE THE NEW A220 IN OUR PICTURE GALLERY BELOW***
It is the middle of the 3 seats that boasts the widest seat of all single-aisle planes – at 20inches – making it perfect for larger fliers.
The meal tray features two cup holders, more than the usual one which will be a godsend for passengers who enjoy more than one drink.
The overhead luggage compartments are big enough to fit a cabin bag for every single passenger on board.
And the windows are larger too, for those fliers that enjoy looking out the window when taking off, cruising and landing.
An Airbus worker showing Daily Star Online around the plane also revealed another advantage of the small-but-sleek A220.
He told us how the days of waiting for the meal trolley to go past to walk to the toilet are over – as the 0.51m aisle is wide enough to fit both.
And when you finally reach the loo, the toilets are noticeably bigger than most too, bringing an end to tightly shutting the door behind you.
The Daily Star toured two versions of the new A220 at Farnborough – a test version belonging to Airbus, and one already in-use by Air Baltic.
The latter had an extra feature fitted to the jet – mood lighting – which saw the cabin light up in different colours.
Both jets we toured are the bigger A220-300, as opposed to the also-new, but smaller A220-100 which seats 135 passengers.
The planes were formerly part of Canadian airline Bombardier’s C-Series family, branded CS100 and CS200.
But Airbus struck up a partnership with Bombardier in June to acquire the popular planes, making them the newest members of Airbus.
American airline Jet Blue has already ordered 60 of them, with hundreds more stacking up in the books.
Brit tourists can already fly on the A220-300 as Switzerland’s national airline Swiss already flies them into London Heathrow.
As for whether British airlines have put any orders in for this plush fleet of jets, only time will tell.
