Summary American Airlines' first Airbus A321XLR was spotted at Hamburg airport. Visual differences between the A321neo and the A321XLR are subtle, but the XLR has a rear-center cargo fuel tank for long-range. The A321XLR will replace American's A321T subfleet on premium routes.
American Airlines ’ first Airbus A321XLR was spotted at Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport (XFW) on Friday. The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline is expected to become the second carrier to receive the highly anticipated aircraft later this year after launch customer Iberia. With its first sighting, American’s route planning executive expressed excitement for the new jet.
The carrier has high hopes in the plane as it looks to fill a gap left behind after the retirement of its Boeing 757-200 and 767-300ERs four years ago. As seen on the tail The new A321XLR was seen being towed at XFW. It is expected to be registered as N470AN, but it is far from complete.
Its fuselage is only in primer, and the engines have yet to be mounted. The only striking identifier that it belongs to American is its tail, which is already painted in the carrier’s abstract US flag design . Brian Znotins is American’s Senior Vice president of Network Planning.
The executive reposted a picture of the airframe on Friday with a fitting caption. The visual difference between the NEO & XLR Since American already operates several examples of the A321neo , and has more on order, some might assume that the spotted airframe is not the A321X.