A220-100 · A220-300
How the A220 actually works, panel by panel. A series from our sister airline LX Virtual, which flies 35 of them.
The A220-100 and A220-300 share the BD500 type rating, and neither shares one with the A320. The wingspan is identical, and both are ICAO code C.
The airfield limit becomes 10,000 ft only with service bulletin BD500-314004, which makes it a question of the airframe, not of the type.
Outboard sits the PFD with a vertical situation display along the bottom, inboard the MFDs with map, synoptics, flight management and checklist, and in the centre engines, configuration and crew alerts. If a screen fails, its content moves. That is why the scan has to be learned, not transferred.
It is autothrottle, not autothrust: armed on the glareshield, and it moves the thrust levers. FLC climbs or descends at a selected speed, VNAV flies the vertical profile of the plan, and the speed source is a labelled FMS or MAN position rather than push or pull.
The A220's habit is to write things down. A/T DISC sits under your thumb, the flap lever has five detents, autobrake has its own position for the reject, and the gear speeds are placarded next to the lever. You are meant to read the aeroplane, not recite it.
The overhead has ten marked areas and one habit: set before start, then read back. Two fire bottles per engine sit across the top, and the rest of the panel is housekeeping you touch once and leave alone.
Nine buttons on the inboard display each take over the surface when you ask. Comms are a page, active left and standby right, and there is no MCDU: FPLN, PERF and ROUTE sit on the same row of keys as NORMAL, NON-NORMAL and PROC.
Alerts appear on the centre display and do not bring their own drill. You read, then choose from SUMMARY, NORMAL, NON-NORMAL or PROC. Summary offers what is likely, not what is happening. Some items are sensed and ticked for you, and a sensed item is still read aloud.
Fly-by-wire and two sidesticks, but not the A320's three laws. There is Normal mode and Direct mode, one step down instead of two, and high-AoA protection survives into Direct.
Performance is computed in the takeoff app on the EFB. Run SYNC FMS and SYNC WX, press CALCULATE, send the result to the FMS and press SET VSPEEDS. Until then the speed tape reads INVALID SPD USE MAN. Landing performance runs the same way, but always by hand.
Flaps run from 1 to 5, and you land on 4 or 5. Autobrake has RTO for the reject, LO for long and dry, MED for every day and HI for short or wet. Circling means gear down, Flaps 4 or 5 and VREF + 10 kt.
Both variants are approach category C, and the A220-300 carries larger brakes than the -100.
Both fail passive (formerly CAT IIIa) and fail operational (formerly CAT IIIb) were flown and found suitable with autoland. The HUD is part of the type course, and where it is fitted on both sides both pilots stay current on it.
A runaway or jammed stabiliser and fuel jettisoning are not applicable by design, there is no flight engineer's panel, and overspeed protection replaces tuck and Mach buffet. The regulator also found no flight characteristics peculiar to the type, which is rarer than it sounds.
Fly, navigate, communicate: nothing on a checklist outranks the flight path in the first minute. Irreversible actions, such as a shut-down or a discharge, are confirmed by both pilots before a hand moves.
Handing over means “your controls”, taking over means “my controls”. The pilot monitoring calls, the pilot flying verifies independently, and if the call is not made the other pilot makes it. The report rules are the same as ours.
Coming from the A320? This is the card worth keeping.
The first CSeries ever delivered went to SWISS: HB-JBA, handed over in June 2016. The first revenue flight followed on 15 July from Zürich to Paris, and the badge changed to Airbus A220 in July 2018. Twenty A220s carry the names of Swiss regions.
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Checked against: FAA Flight Standardization Board report, type certificate data and LX Virtual OM-B, 3 Aug 2026. For flight simulation only, never for real-world navigation. Procedures change, so your current charts and ATC always win.
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