Papua New Guinea’s flag carrier, Air Niugini, has take delivery of its first Airbus A220 single-aisle airliner from the European OEM.
The aircraft, an A220-300, was delivered the airline after being financed by leasing specialist Azorra and is the first of three A220-300s the airline has ordered.
In addition, Air Niugini also has eight of the smaller A220-100s on order, also financed by Azorra.
The first A220-300 is dubbed “Peoples Balus” and wears a special livery marking Papua New Guinea’s 50th anniversary of independence which took a team of 120 people to paint.
The aircraft was delivered to Port Moresby from Airbus’ Final Assembly Line (FAL) in Mirabel, Canada.
The A220 is powered by Pratt & Whitney’s latest-generation GTF engines which offer a 25% reduction in carbon emissions per seat compared with previous-generation aircraft.
As with all Airbus aircraft, the A220 is already able to operate with up to 50% SustainableAviation Fuel (SAF), with a target for all aircraft to be capable of operating with up to 100% SAF by 2030.