The first Airbus A320 delivered to Aer Lingus back in 2000, has made its final flight after 23 years of service with the airline. EI-CVA was delivered to Dublin on the 23rd of June 2000 from the Airbus factory in Toulouse. It was the first of the 46 Airbus A320s that have operated with the airline of which 32 are still flying across the airline’s short-haul network. EI-CVA made its last revenue flight for Aer Lingus on the 15th of September when it operated a Dublin-Amsterdam-Dublin rotation followed by a ferry flight to Newquay for some maintenance work. The aircraft was prepared for its final flight to Ireland West Airport and it departed Newquay shortly after 09.00 am on Thursday morning for the 50-minute flight. Upon arrival at Ireland West Airport, the aircraft was met by a crew from EirTrade Aviation who will now remove the engines and several other parts that will be returned to the Aer Lingus maintenance facilities for use on other aircraft. In the coming weeks, the remaining useful parts will be removed and serviced for use as spare parts before the final scrapping of the airframe will take place.
Although, EI-CVA was the first A320 with the airline, Aer Lingus already had a number of Airbus in their fleet at the time. The first Airbus to arrive in the fleet was Airbus A330-301 EI-SHN which was delivered in April 1994 as the long-term replacements for the Boeing 747s. The Airbus A321 joined the fleet in 1998 and was used initially on the Dublin – Heathrow services as well the European network.
