Airbus Fire Sale: Discounting New A220s Up to 72%, Hurry Buy Now

When aircraft manufacturers like Boeing or Airbus sell planes, media report the value of the orders based on ‘list prices’ but those are made up numbers. No one pays list prices. Roughly speaking you can usually assume that airlines pay about half of list pricing.

A year and a half ago I wrote that Delta would have gotten an even bigger discount on its order of the Bombardier C series jet. Their $5.6 billion ‘list’ order for 75 planes gave the Canadian manufacturer a big order from a US airline and established the plane as really viable in the world market. They’d have discounted as much as possible to make that happen, and Delta is known as a tough negotiator.

Airbus has taken over marketing the C series and now they’re ‘Airbus A220s’.


Swiss International Air Lines new Bombardier CSeries passenger jet on display at Singapore Airshow, Copyright: prestonia / 123RF Stock Photo

JetBlue has now placed an order for 60 Airbus A220-300s and may have gotten 72% off list pricing. That says two things. First list prices are meaningless, which isn’t new. Second, even with Airbus backing the project they need to sell the planes cheap to get deals done — reportedly between $23 million and $28 million per plane.

This is the first sale since Airbus took control of Bombardier’s C Series project, and they were apparently willing to do almost anything to make that happen.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. After tariffs are tacked on, the cost will be 110% of list.

    A 28 million, these planes list for roughly 100 million each. That seems kind of high for a smaller passenger jet.

  2. I’m gonna order mine this weekend. Which credit card should I use to maximize the rewards?

  3. @Doug, after tariffs are tacked onto your points, you would have been better off paying cash, at list price.

  4. Is this a nonrefundable fare/purchase? no changes/cancellations?
    All major credit cards accepted?

  5. I think this new plane is beyond words, great. So many airline routes that have CRJs, will be replaced with this aircraft. And, it has first class. I live in a city that only has CRJs. Delta will probably replace at least their ATL flights with this aircraft. Now, if UA buys some that will be really great! Because Denver has so many CRJ flights.

  6. Its a great plane and feels like a 737 or 320 inside. Did a couple of flights on Swiss, good overhead space and nice open feel. 2 – 3 seating with business on Swiss the usual every 2nd seat free (so not that great).

  7. There won’t be any tariffs because AB are building a final assembly line in Mobile next to their FAL that builds A320/321s, including nearly all of DL’s recent purchases.

  8. @msnflier: Actually, it’s because the U.S. International Trade Commission overruled the Department of Commerce and said “100- to 150-seat large civil aircraft from Canada do not injure U.S. industry”. They could scrap the Mobile FAL and still sell the planes without tariffs.

  9. I have a test flight scheduled at the dealer this weekend. Comes with a $25 gas card for just showing up!

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