Our Fleet
Airbus A319
The A319 is a minimum change, shortened derivative of the highly successful A320. The major difference between the A320 and A319 is that the latter is shorter by seven fuselage frames, while in almost all other respects the A319 and A320 are identical.
Like the A321, A330 and A340, the A319 features Airbus' common two crew glass cockpit with sidestick controllers first introduced on the A320. There are significant crew training cost benefits and operational savings from this arrangement as the A319, A320 and A321 can all be flown by pilots with the same type rating, meaning that the same flightcrew pool can fly any of the three types. Airwest's A319s comfortably seat 138 passengers. All Airwest Airbus A319s are fitted with personal DirecTV screens in the headrests.
Airbus A320
The A320 is perhaps best known as the first airliner to introduce a fly-by-wire flight control system - where control inputs from the pilot are transmitted to the flying surfaces by electronic signals rather than mechanical means. Apart from a small weight saving, the advantage of Airbus' fly-by-wire is that as it is computer controlled, an inbuilt flight envelope protection makes it virtually impossible to exceed certain flight parameters such as G limits and the aircraft's maximum and minimum operating speeds and angle of attack limits. Airwest's A320s are configured to comfortably seat 160 passengers in a single class. Like the A319s the A320s also offer DirecTV to all passengers.
