Airbus gains first Flight Hour Services contract in North America with JetBlue for its A220 fleet

Airbus has signed its first Flight Hour Services (FHS) contract with a North American customer. U.S.-based airline JetBlue is acquiring long-term Airbus components maintenance services for its 70 A220 aircraft on order. The A220 started operations with JetBlue in April 2021.

The maintenance-by-the-hour service contract includes material services with on-site-parts stock management, as well as access to Airbus’ pool of parts, engineering and repair services.

“As for all Airbus aircraft programmes, A220 customers are benefitting from Airbus’ renowned maintenance FHS programme. We are extremely proud to welcome JetBlue as our first FHS customer in North America and be able to further increase its A220 fleet’s availability in support of traffic resuming”, said Dominik Wacht, Head of Airbus Customer Services, North America.

“With a substantially lower direct operating cost over other aircraft in our fleet from both fuel and non-fuel savings, the A220 also helps further reset JetBlue's maintenance costs well into the decade,” said Bill Cade, Vice President Technical Operations, JetBlue. “Airbus’ FHS solution helps support our long-term financial goals as they relate to maintenance and supports our ability to offer low fares and award-winning service to more JetBlue customers.”

JetBlue will be the third A220 airline operator to use Airbus’ FHS service. Over 150 A220s have been delivered to nine airlines operating routes in Asia, America, Europe and Africa, proving the great versatility of Airbus’ latest family member.

This first FHS contract for Airbus in North America confirms the growing expansion of Airbus’ maintenance-by-the-hour solution to accompany traffic restart: over the last six months, eleven FHS contracts have been signed with operators worldwide.