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By Bjorn Fehrm

July 3, 2025, © Leeham News: We are writing an article series about stretching the A220 to a capacity in the A320neo range. The idea is to replace the A320neo over time, making room in the A320/321 production lines for more A321s and extending the A220 family with a larger variant.

We can increase the capacity to that of the A320neo by stretching the A220 fuselage. The next discussion was about how much we could increase the Maximum Takeoff Weight (MTOW) to accommodate more passengers and additional fuel, thereby maintaining the A220-300 range with a longer, heavier, and, therefore, draggier aircraft. We would need to find wing lift improvements and more thrust to keep the field performance close to the A220-300.

We now utilize the Leeham Aircraft Performance and Cost Model (APCM) to evaluate various changes to an A220-500 to optimize its performance.

Figure 1. A rendering of an A220-500. Source: Leeham Co.

Summary:

• An A220-500 can be designed to have close to the same fuel seat-mile economics as the A320neo. Our article series explains why beating the A320neo would be a challenge.
• It also looks into what a CFM LEAP-engined A220-500 would look like and how it would perform.