Frontier is the first US airline to order A321XLR

Frontier
Photo courtesy: upgradedpoints.com

The Airbus A321XLR was formally launched at the Paris Air Show at the beginning of this week. The plane will be available in 2023 and is the longest range (15% more range than A321LR) narrow body single aisle aircraft to be ever built with 5400 miles range.

Indigo Partners, a Phoenix-based private equity fund that invests in other airlines has ordered 50 A321XLRs that it plans to distribute among three airlines: Frontier Airlines (US), JetSMART (Chile) and Wizz Air (Hungary).

According to onemileatatime.com out of the 50 A321 XLRs ordered Indigo Partners has allocated 20 A321XLRs to Wizz Air, 18 A321XLRs to Frontier Airlines and 12 A321XLRs to JestSMART.

What may come as a surprise to most of us is Frontier takes the credit for being the first airline in the US to order A321XLR. Frontier is America’s low-cost family airline based in Denver and has more domestic operations within the US and very few international routes to Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean.

According to onemileatatime.com Frontier’s CEO has confirmed the airline’s plans to acquire 18 A321XLRs Wednesday and he said that the addition of the new A321XLRS in its fleet will enable:

  • Frontier to fly easily from coast-to-coast in winter with a full payload
  • New flight services to Hawaii and Alaska using A321XLRS
  • Addition of flights to Europe and South America

Currently Frontier has 90 Airbus A320 family aircrafts in its fleet and 200 more aircrafts are on order which mainly comprises of A320neo, A321neo and now A321XLR.

The A321XLRs have a huge demand and most airlines in the aviation industry are planning to acquire these and getting a delivery slot for these planes in the next decade isn’t very easy, airlines must act fast and place their orders at the earliest.

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