Crashed Germanwings A320 plane was 24 years old: One of oldest still operating
THE Germanwings plane that crashed was 24 years old – one of the oldest of its type.
Airbus said the A320 was delivered to Lufthansa in 1991 and had clocked up 58,300 hours in 46,700 flights.
Flightglobal’s operations and safety editor David Learmount said: “It is one of the oldest A320s still flying but Europe-based airlines do not fly badly maintained airplanes.
“Germanwings is a Lufthansaowned carrier and the Germans aren’t known for failing to take engineering seriously.”
The A320 is the workhorse of short-haul flights, with one taking off or landing somewhere in the world every 2.5 seconds each day.
It is one of the oldest A320s still flying
It is used by airlines including low-cost carriers such as easyJet while British Airways operates some 120 of the A320s.
The crash is Germanwings’ first fatal crash in its 18-year history.
The low-cost airline carries about 16 million passengers a year on short-haul flights in Europe and North Africa.
In the UK it flies out of Heathrow, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Newquay, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
