History of Airbus

Airbus SE is a multinational company established in 1970 and one of the world's largest manufactures of passenger and military airplanes and helicopters. The company started as a supranational consortium uniting the major European aerospace industries into an economic interest group (GIE). The initiative was driven by the governments of France, Germany and the United Kingdom and the formal establishment of Airbus was on 18^th of December 1970. Very soon after, the consortium expanded with the leading aircraft companies of the Netherlands and Spain.

The first model designed and produced at the company was Airbus A300, which took off for its maiden flight on 28^th of October 1972. By the end of the 1970s, the consortium had 256 orders of the A300 aircraft. More advanced airplane model, the Airbus A310 was launched in 1978 with several purchase orders in place. The first flight of A310 commenced on 3^rd of April 1982. In the next years, Airbus successfully launched, what would become the world’s most popular family of aircraft, the A320 family. The maiden flight of the base model, Airbus A320 was on 22^nd of February 1987. Several years latter, on 11^th of March 1993, the second model in the family, the longer Airbus A321 flew for the first time. The customers interest in the products of Airbus spurred further development and on 25^th of August 1995, the first “shrink” of A320, the Airbus A319 commenced the first flight. This was followed by even shorter aircraft, Airbus A318, which was designed in late 1998 and flew for the first time on 15^th of January 2002.

The 1990s were marked by the appearance of two other families of aircraft, the A330 and A340 family. The larger variant, Airbus A340 was on its maiden flight on 25^th of October 1991, while Airbus A330 was flew for the first time a year latter, on 2^nd of November 1992. During the first decade of 21^st century, Airbus became one of the largest producers of civil airplanes in the world. Around the turn of the millennium, several programs were launched to target lucrative markets, with designs of corporate jets and aircraft for military aviation.

In 2010s Airbus continued to expand in the civil sector with the design and production of new models. The Airbus A350 flew for the first time on 14^th of June 2015. There was a family of shorter aircraft, the A220, launched in 2008. The first flight of Airbus A220 was on 16^th of September 2013. The 2010s was also the decade to introduce a major refresh of nearly all models of the company. The start of the neo (“new engine option”) program with re-engineered engines, better wingtip design and other improvements gave the aircraft lower maintenance cost, higher energy efficiency and longer range. Gradually the new models were re-branded as “neo” variants as contrast to the existing models, which were sold under the label “ceo” (“current engine option”).

Radiolocation of active aircraft

The active Airbus aircraft are spotted through an advanced radiolocation. Successful airframe locks and identification are plotted for each month in a table format.

Aircraft families

The following presents a list of Airbus families, the numbers build and some basic information of the aircraft: