Meanwhile, the A320 and A321 jets had both -100 and -200 variants. Moving up is the A319, then the A320, and finally, the A321 is the longest version.Īll A318 and A319s were -100s. Thus, the Airbus A318 is the smallest member within the A320 family. While Boeing's narrowbody 737 family across its multiple generations has its suffixes that vary according to size, Airbus' A320 family moves up and down in size with the last two digits. The A320 family is another example of this. It's difficult to present rules and conventions when the planemakers themselves break the pattern every now and then. For example, there are three engine variants for the Airbus A380-800: While the last two digits are often a pair of zeros when identifying the aircraft, these last two digits can get more specific.Įxcluding the fourth digit "N suffix" for neo aircraft (explained below), the last two numbers of Airbus jets simply describe the type of engine used on the aircraft. You can read about why an A340-400 doesn't exist in this article. Using the single-generation A340 family, we have the following variants, which get larger in size as the variant number gets higher: Just like over at competitor Boeing, these aircraft families further divide into various models, designated with a hyphen and three digits. Likely realizing that names based on passenger capacity could get messy, the planemaker held on to its A3XX and A3X0 pattern. Thus, Boeing aircraft purpose-built for Korean Air all end in B5. But while the newest 747s are referred to as 747-8s, their "full names" do appear to have three digits after the hyphen. It looks like Boeing decided to drop these last distinctions for newer jets as they don't seem to appear for 787 and 737 MAX aircraft. So, can you guess what airline operates a Boeing 737-924? Continental Airlines (now operated by United): 737-824.Take a look below at other 737-800s and their customers, and how the last two numbers (or letters) change: For example, 737-800s built for Delta are designated the 737-832. When looking at the most specific of model numbers, it appears that Boeing has assigned the very last two of the three digits as identifiers for the original customer of the aircraft (up until a certain point). For example, while Air Canada calls it the 737 MAX 8, Singapore Airlines calls the same type of aircraft a "737-8." One oddity is the 737 MAX 200, which is a high-density variant of the MAX 8.Īfter the -900 came the MAX. At times some carriers have dropped the word MAX from the name. The aircraft get longer with ascending numbers: MAX 8, MAX 9, and the longest being the MAX 10. For MAX jets, the shortest in the family is the MAX 7. 737 MAX: The naming of this series of 737s took a departure from previous generations, using single digits rather than triple (just like the 787 family).Unlike the numbering of the Classic series, each ascending number corresponds to a further stretch of the 737, with the -900 being the longest of the NG aircraft. The -600 was an update to the short -500 and is the smallest of the NG series. The -400 was a stretch of the -300, but slightly counterintuitively, the -500 is a shrunken version of the -300. The -200 is a lengthened version of the -100. Here is how the generations and series divide: The 737 family of aircraft began with the -100 but has gone all the way up to the -900. The 737 family is the most interesting case for designation variations as each generation has had several series. The series numbers tend to indicate two general differentiators: Aircraft size and aircraft generation. These three numbers represent the series within the model. Most often, up until recent times, three digits have been added. For all Boeing commercial families, a hyphen follows the model.
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