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The USAirways Airbus Story

In late 1996, USAirways announced a major aircraft order as
part of our continuing fleet modernization program. The aircraft
selected was the European made Airbus Industrie A320 family.
USAirways announced an order for up to 400 A319/A320 and
A321 aircraft. The base design of the A320 family is the A320
aircraft (see picture at right, middle airplane). The A319 and
A321 are hybrids of the base airplane design, the A319 being
a smaller version and the A321 being a larger version.

USAirways Airbus A319 on final approach.

At present,  USAirways operates both the A319 and
the A320. We have received no A321 aircraft yet,
and I am not sure if there are any A321s in the 
original firm order. Many A320 airplanes are going
to the USAirways Shuttle, operating in the New
York-Boston-Washington corridor, replacing older,
noisy, costly 727 aircraft on the Shuttle routes.
The A319 was the first Airbus product to be delivered
to USAirways and we now have over 20 Airbus 
aircraft in the fleet. Their dispatch reliability has 
been excellent for a new type of aircraft in what was
essentially an all-Boeing fleet.
  The A320 aircraft is state of the art. It is known as
a "fly-by-wire" airplane, meaning that pilot control
inputs are read by the flight computer, then trans-
mitted electronically to the flight control surfaces.
Most functions are automatic and fully redundant...
in some cases, triple redundant. What results is an
extremely safe, stable, and comfortable airplane.      

The flight deck of the A319. The flight decks of the A319,
A320, and A321 are all common. Note the absence of a
control yoke, lending instead to a sidestock "joystick"
type controller.

Airbus Industrie A330-300

Pictured at left is a three view
diagram of the Airbus A330
aircraft, of which USAirways
has up to 30 on order. Shown
at right is the smaller A330-
200 version, with a larger -300
model available. USAirways
has chosen the A330-300 to be
the airplane we will use as our
premier Transatlantic airplane.
Currently, we operate the
Boeing 767-200ER (Extended
Range) airplane on all of our
Transatlantic routes. The
first A330-300 will be delivered
to USAirways in March, 2000.
  Intended more or less as a
competitor to Boeing's 777 and
767-400, the A330 has much
commonality with the smaller

A319 and A320 aircraft currently in use. The A330-300 will be offered in three classes: an as-yet-unnamed
Premium First Class, USAirway's Envoy (Business) Class, and a very spacious Coach Class.

Boeing 767-200ER

Fokker F.100 mk1000

Dutch aircraft builder Fokker produced the F.100 as a
competitor to the Boeing 737-500, Boeing 717, and the
Airbus A319. Fokker has since gone out of business and
the F.100 is used as a short distance airplane on many
of our high frequency routes.

We operate the 767-200ER (Extended Range)
airplane primarily on European services from the
U.S. mainland. Here is a really nice picture of
N655US at Philadelphia, PA.

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