Fill'er up! Six extra tanks in the cargo bay provide the ACJ with a range of up to 6,300 nm.

Two green ACJs are now undergoing completion for two customers, one at Lufthansa Technik in Germany and the other at Jet Aviation in Switzerland. Both customers had been undisclosed, but Gaona told Show News that the first completed aircraft will go to the Italian government in early 2000.

The latest announced customer for the Airbus Corporate Jetliner is Fayair, the flight department of Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrods department store in London. The aircraft is scheduled for delivery to a completion center in May.
Airbus Industrie has commitments for 14 ACJs, including customers in North America, Europe, Middle East and Asia. It has been ordered by all three sectors of the market-companies, governments and individuals. The only other announced ACJ customer is the Kuwaiti conglomerate Al Kharafi.

The ACJ is essentially an A319 with extra fuel tanks to give it intercontinental range. It has a 2,000-foot higher cruising altitude of 41,000 feet, and the highest-thrust engines available on the A320 family.

The ACJ has two engine options: the International Aero Engines V2500 or CFM International CFM56- 5Bs.
In August, the ACJ received its basic certification from the European JAA. The type certificate for the ACJ is not new, but rather is an amendment of the existing A319 type certificate required by modifications in the Corporate Jetliner model of the aircraft.

The modifications that required recertification included installation of up to six auxiliary fuel tanks to give the ACJ range of up to 6,300 nmi. In addition, the ACJ is certified to fly at cruise altitudes of 41,000 feet and, in order to better accommodate the weight distribution of the VIP interiors, the aircraft has been certified with a forward extension of its center-of-gravity range.

As part of the fuel tank certification, the aircraft completed a 15-plus-hour non-stop flight from Santiago, Chile, to the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget in June. The 6,918-nmi flight was made without a cabin interior, but with 2,000 kilograms of flight-test instrumentation aboard.

"We have linked continents with an aircraft whose job was originally to fly within them," said Airbus Training Center and former Flight Division VP Pierre Baud.

Just prior to the Santiago flight, Baud was part of a team that flew the ACJ 6,553 nmi on a non-stop flight from Toulouse to Buenos Aires.

Like Boeing, Airbus has hooked up with a commercial airline in the U.S. to manage the maintenance program for its business jets. Under a partnership with United Airlines' UAL Services, ACJ customers will have access to a support network and other services via an Airbus-managed single point of contact. ACJ customers will have access to a round-the-clock, toll-free service number.

As one of the largest A319 and A320 operators-the carrier has 80 in service and another 50 on order-United is well placed to facilitate ACJ maintenance. Its partnership in the Star Alliance with other major Airbus operators like Lufthansa-which is already completing ACJs through its Lufthansa Technik subsidiary-means it is likely ACJ maintenance will be expanded to other airlines as well.

"United will offer optional services to ACJ customers worldwide, and we will take advantage of the Star Alliance," says Gaona. When asked whether Lufthansa would maintain the corporate jet, Gaona responded, "Lufthansa is part of the Star Alliance."

Airbus is not bringing an A319CJ or mock-up to this year's show in Atlanta, but will instead "focus on customer service issues at NBAA," Gaona says. Executives from United Airlines will join Gaona on the Airbus stand in Atlanta.