After two fruitful first days with 70 Airbus A321XLR models sold to companies like Air Lease Corp., Middle East Airlines, IAG, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Cebu Pacific Airways, with an additional day at the Paris Air Show 2019 the number of sales rocketed drastically .

Part of those purchases coincide with a conversion of 74 previous orders shared between American Airlines (30), Qantas (26) and Indigo Partners (18) of the A321neo. Nevertheless, Airbus was able to sell 206 of its improved version of the A321LR, which can cover a flying range of 4 700 NM.

It must be mentioned that IAG wants to split the 14 aircraft purchased between Iberia (8) and Are Lingus (6). For its part, the Philippine company Cebu Pacific Airways signed for 10 firm orders and will use these aircraft as of 2023 for destinations like India and Australia. In the mean time, Saudi Arabian Airlines took 15 A321XLRs to complete an order of 65 additional aircraft of the A320neo family.

In order to increase the flying range of the A321LR of 700 NM, Airbus’ engineers have entirely reviewed the design of auxiliary tanks located in the cargo bay. This work enables Airbus to set a permanent tank just behind the wings with a capacity equivalent to four additional tanks while its mass is the same as one additional tank.