It began life as a Canadian underdog. Bombardier’s CSeries was the aircraft that wasn’t supposed to survive — a small, clean-sheet design from a company that had never built anything bigger than a regional jet, taking on Boeing and Airbus on their home turf. Bombardier nearly went bankrupt bringing it to market. Boeing slapped it with trade tariffs. Industry analysts wrote it off. This week, Airbus delivered the 500th A220. The aircraft that nobody thought would make it just became one of the most successful commercial programmes of the last decade.

The Underdog Story

The CSeries programme was Bombardier’s moonshot. The Montreal-based company had built a successful business making regional jets — the CRJ family that you’ve probably flown on without knowing it. But the CSeries was different. It was a clean-sheet design with a new-generation Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engine, advanced composites, and a cabin width that rivalled aircraft twice its size. It was designed to be 20 percent more fuel-efficient than anything in its class. The programme nearly killed the company. Development costs ballooned. Delays mounted. And then Boeing filed a trade complaint with the US International Trade Commission, claiming Bombardier was selling the CSeries to Delta Air Lines below cost. Boeing demanded tariffs of nearly 300 percent.

Bombardier’s solution was radical: in 2017, it sold a majority stake in the CSeries programme to Airbus for one dollar. Airbus got a ready-made aircraft to fill a gap in its lineup. Bombardier got access to Airbus’s global sales network, supply chain leverage, and political protection against Boeing’s tariff campaign. The ITC ultimately rejected Boeing’s complaint, but by then the partnership was sealed. The CSeries became the A220.

Why Airlines Love It

The A220 occupies a sweet spot that neither Boeing nor Airbus had properly served before: the 100–160 seat market. It is too big to be a regional jet and too small to be a traditional narrowbody, but it burns less fuel per seat than either. For airlines operating thin routes — city pairs that don’t generate enough demand for an A320 or 737 but need something bigger than a CRJ — the A220 is often the only aircraft that makes the economics work. The passenger experience helps too. The cabin is wider than both the 737 and the original A320 family, with a 2–3 seating layout that means no middle seat in economy. Overhead bins are generous. Noise levels are remarkably low, thanks to the geared turbofan engines.

The Road to 500

Reaching 500 deliveries has not been smooth. The A220 programme has battled supply chain disruptions, engine availability issues with Pratt & Whitney, and the challenge of ramping up production across two assembly lines on two continents. The Mirabel plant in Canada and the Mobile facility in Alabama are both still working to reach full capacity. Airbus is currently delivering roughly eight A220s per month and aims to reach 14 per month by the end of 2026 — a target that supply chain headwinds have already pushed back once. But the order book is deep, with hundreds of unfilled orders from airlines including JetBlue, Delta, Air France, and Swiss. Five hundred aircraft is a milestone, but it is also a statement. The CSeries was supposed to fail. Instead, it became the A220 and proved that there was a market Boeing and Airbus had been ignoring for decades. The next 500 will come faster.

Sources: AeroTime, FlightGlobal, Airbus, Aviation Week