The Airbus A318 is the smallest aircraft in the Airbus portfolio. First flying on 15 January 2002, it is designed to carry up to 132 passengers and is affectionately referred to in some circles as the baby bus.
Entering service with Frontier Airlines in July 2003, it is powered by either two Pratt & Whitney PW6000 or CFM56-5B turbofan engines. It is over six metres shorter than the Airbus A320 it is based on, and features a larger vertical stabiliser.
Airbus A318 Video
Following on from the last video about the Douglas DC-2, this time we head to Europe for a look at the Airbus A318. The video below runs for almost 12 minutes and is produced by the manufacturer.
Opening with footage of the aircraft’s first flight, it then moves to the production line, showing various elements being put together. This is always interesting to see, and all of it is accompanied by an inoffensive corporate music soundtrack.
The Most Famous Airbus A318 Flights
Perhaps the most famous flights using the Airbus A318 were the British Airways services between London City airport and New York JFK. These were referred to as Club World London City, and featured just 32 seats – all of them business class. They took over the old Concorde flight numbers, BA1 and BA3 to New York and BA2 and BA4 to London.
- Inside the British Airways Airbus A318. Comfortable, right?
The flight from London City to New York stopped in Shannon, Ireland for refueling due to the short runway at LCY. While there, passengers went through US immigration preclearance so they would arrive as domestic passengers. The return flight from New York operated non-stop. Pretty exclusive really, and I enjoyed the experience immensely.
Airbus A318 Operators
Seven airlines ordered the Airbus A318 off the production line, and another two airlines picked up the entire fleets of two of them. Here are pictures of all the airline liveries worn by the jet. The first 11 are all Frontier planes and you will see why…
- Grizwald the Grizzly Bear.
- Montana the Elk.
- Stu the Rabbit (get it?)
- Mo and Joe the Kit Fox pups.
- Ollie the Great Grey Owl.
- Humphrey the American bison.
- Charlie the Couger.
- Clover the Fawn.
- Spike the Porcupine.
- Sheldon the Sea Turtle.
- Benny the Grizzly Bear.
- Air France ordered 18 and this is the original livery. The update is at the top of this article.
- Mexicana ordered 10 aircraft.
- This is the final livery before they went bankrupt in 2010.
- Avianca picked up all 10 from Mexicana.
- Chile’s LAN operated 15 examples, but only for a few years.
- Avianca Brasil picked up all of theirs from LAN.
- TAROM ordered four new from the production line.
- British Airways also ordered two new from Airbus.
In addition to those, another 20 were ordered by various private operators and governments. These became VIP aircraft to one extent or another, offering airline level space for those clients.
Overall Thoughts
There were just 80 Airbus A318s produced between 2001 and 2013, which is a very short production run indeed. It is both the smallest and lowest selling variant of the A320 family.
Today you can find them in service with Air France and TAROM, which are the final airlines operating them. Once they go, the remaining fleet will be in private hands.
Have you flown on board the baby bus before? What was that like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Frontier – N801FR via Pinterest, N806FR via Pinterest, and N807FR via Pinterest. N802FR, N803FR, N804FR, N805FR and N812FR by Konstantin von Wedelstaedt on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons. Cubbie_n_Vegas on Flickr via Wikimedia Commons took the pictures of N808FR and N810FR. Finally, N809FR is by Eddie Maloney via Wikimedia Commons.
Air France original livery by Philippe Noret of AirTeamimages, current livery by Kambui. Mexicana old livery by Konstantin von Wedelstaedt on Airliners.net and new livery by André Austin Du-Pont Rocha on Airliners.net. Avianca by Andrés Ramírez on Airliners.net and Avianca Brasil by Rafael Luiz Canossa. LAN by Aeroprints on Flickr, TAROM by Anna Zvereva and British Airways by Ronnie Macdonald. All via Wikimedia Commons.
I remember TWA ordered 50, with options on another 50. Partly to get the always-deferred A330 order off the books. Then along came AA and they cancelled the order along with the remaining 717s. I recall reading in the TWA employee newsletter that the plan was for the 318 to fly long, thin routes in the TWA system so it would have been interesting to see where TWA would have sent those ships. TW had opened focus cities in SJU, then LAX with a third one to be announced, that never was. My speculation based on the number of gates… Read more »
Yes, I remember this too. AA were very quick to ditch the outstanding TWA orders, that’s for sure. I was always rooting for TWA to survive, but that awful Karabu agreement really hamstrung them for years. It would have been interesting to see what the A318s did, so it must have been some cross country type things. Would have been a comfortable enough ride too, you’d think. I’d love to have seen the A318 in the TWA livery, that’s for sure!