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By Bjorn Fehrm

October 23, 2025, © Leeham News: Airbus’s A321 was launched in November 1988, around the time the original A320 entered service. Delivery to the first A321 customer, Lufthansa, was in January 1994.

The initial sales of the A321 were modest, with deliveries of the variant languishing between one and three aircraft per month for the first ten years. It wasn’t until after the launch of the A320neo/A321neo in 2010 that sales climbed to 10 per month, 20 years after the first delivery. This shall be compared to the 30 per month after another 10 years in 2024.

The smaller A320 was at 24 per month by 2010 and then touched 35 per month in 2019 before it started to cede the market to the A321neo after COVID. Deliveries in 2024 were at 19 per month.

With the A321 dominating Airbus deliveries from 2022, the question is: which variant of the A321 is suitable for what routes? Does a “misuse” of an A321LR or XLR on short to medium routes mean an operational cost loss compared to a standard A321neo?

We look into the different A321neo variants and compare their capacities and operational costs in this series.

Summary:

• The Airbus A321 started life with low sales, the market preferring the smaller A319 and A320. One of the reasons was the large jump in capacity between the A320 and A321, more than 40 seats.
• By the introduction of the A320neo series, the market had developed to higher capacities. After COVID, the A321neo took over as the dominant A320 range variant.