Airbus A320-100

The A320-100 is the version with which the Airbus A320 entered the world: the first production batch, built while Airbus was still finalising the aircraft's definitive specification. Its certified designation is A320-111, and it carries an administrative quirk that says a great deal about its role: the application date of the A320-111 type certificate is the reference date that sets the applicable requirements for the whole A320 series, even though the -111 itself no longer appears among the models listed in today's EASA type certificate data sheet, which begins with the A320-211. It is, quite literally, the regulatory starting point of the entire family.

The programme was launched on 2 March 1984. Air France had signed a letter of intent at the 1981 Paris Air Show for 25 aircraft with options on 25 more, and in October 1983 British Caledonian placed seven firm orders. Power came from two CFM56-5-A1 engines rated at 111 kN, the only engine available until the IAE V2500 arrived. The A320-100 never went beyond that single option: every aircraft in the series flew with the CFM56-5A1, and the certification record lists it together with the CFM56-5A1/F alternative.

The first A320 was rolled out of the Toulouse final assembly line on 14 February 1987, in the presence of French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and the Prince and Princess of Wales, and made its maiden flight on 22 February, lasting three hours and twenty-three minutes. The flight test programme ran to some twelve hundred hours over more than five hundred flights. The European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) awarded certification on 26 February 1988, which is also the date recorded for the A320-111 model.

The first A320 was delivered to Air France on 28 March 1988 and began commercial service that April on a route between Paris and Berlin via Düsseldorf. That year a new A320 was worth about 30 million dollars. The entry into service of the A320-100 was also the airlines' introduction to the digital fly-by-wire controls and the screen-based flight deck that would define the whole family.

The series was very short. Twenty-one aircraft were built in all: one prototype and twenty production machines, manufacturer serial numbers 002 to 021. Fourteen went to Air France and one to Air Inter, the airline later absorbed by Air France. The remaining five stemmed from a British Caledonian order placed before that airline was taken over by British Airways, which ended up receiving them after the merger. The last A320-100 was delivered in February 1989.

The A320-100 is set apart from the next version by what it did not have. It was the only A320 without wingtip devices: it lacked the wingtip fences that the A320-200 would carry. It also lacked the centre fuel tank, so its fuel capacity was smaller, as was its maximum take-off weight, and with them its range. Those two differences, the wingtip fences and the greater fuel capacity, are precisely what defined the A320-200, which replaced the -100 almost as soon as it entered service. It shares with the rest of the series the 37.57-metre fuselage length and the 11.76-metre height that the certification data sheet gives as the principal dimensions of the A320.

With poorer performance than the A320-200 and growing age, the series gradually left the fleets. British Airways retired its last five A320-100s in 2007. Air France's last one left the fleet in July 2010, and it was the very aircraft that had flown the A320's first commercial service. The prototype, serial number 001 and registered F-WWAI, has been on display since 2019 at the Aeroscopia museum in Blagnac, next to the Toulouse airport where the family was born.