Where to fly Delta's best short-haul jet, the A220

Since Delta began flying the Airbus A220 earlier this year, the plane has proved to be quite an upgrade to the passenger experience on many of Delta's longest and most premium short-haul routes.

TPG's Alberto Riva wrote about the reasons he loves Delta's A220s and why he now goes out of his way to fly on them over Delta's other short-haul aircraft. With a much more spacious cabin than the regional jets it's replacing, the widest economy seats in Delta's fleet, spacious fold-down overhead bins on both sides, and a high-resolution, responsive entertainment system, it's easy to see why he was impressed with the new airplane's interior.

Aside from the interior, another benefit for passengers flying on Delta's A220s is their engine noise. Or, rather, the lack thereof. Alberto found the aircraft to be amazingly silent.

I also found this to be the case when a couple of friends and I recently flew this aircraft from Paris to Zurich on Swiss. Even my friend who is an engineer at a jet-engine testing facility was impressed by how extremely quiet the engines were at takeoff power.

Delta has quickly built up its A220 fleet, having already taken delivery of 28 A220-100s. After having only flown the aircraft for a few months, Delta increased its A220 order again this summer to a total of 95 aircraft: 45 of the A220-100s and 50 of the larger A220-300 variant.

Between now and September 2020, Delta's A220-100s are currently scheduled to serve 47 different routes within their network.

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Here is the route list:

Delta's Scheduled A220 Routes

As Delta continues to expand its fleet of A220s over the next few years, I'm looking forward to seeing it replace more and more of the CRJ and Embraer regional jets, as well as the old MD-88s and MD-90s that are currently still lingering around in Delta's fleet. Especially on the two- to four-hour flights that many of those aircraft are still operating, having extra shoulder room, nice IFE systems and enough room for passengers to bring full-size carry-on bags on board will be a welcome change.