Airbus A318

Updated: October 2026 – An Airbus rolls up, you know the nose from hundreds of A320s, but something is off with the proportions: the fuselage is short, the wing looks almost too big, the vertical stabilizer towers up high. Congratulations, you are very likely looking at an Airbus A318 – the smallest and rarest member of the A320 family. In scheduled service it now flies only with Air France, and even there its days are numbered. Here you learn how to identify the “Baby Bus” reliably and where you can still get it in front of your lens.

What is the Airbus A318?

The A318 is the shortest version of the A320 family. Airbus derived it from the A319 and shortened the fuselage by 0.79 meters ahead of and 1.60 meters behind the wing. Wing, cockpit and systems stayed largely the same, which is why pilots fly the A318 with the same type rating as the A319, A320 and A321. For airlines this was an argument: an aircraft for thin routes that fits seamlessly into an existing Airbus fleet.

Typically the A318 seats around 107 passengers in two classes or 117 in one class, with a maximum of 132 seats possible. The range is around 5,700 kilometers, and the cruise speed is Mach 0.78. Two engine families were available: the CFM56-5B and the Pratt & Whitney PW6000. The PW6000 initially burned more fuel than expected, which further hurt sales.

The road to the A318 was bumpy. Originally Airbus wanted to develop a 100-seat project with partners from China and Singapore, which ran under the name AE31X and was canceled in 1998. That became the purely European solution based on the A319. The first flight took place on January 15, 2002 in Hamburg-Finkenwerder, where final assembly was also located – so the A318 is a true Hamburg native. In July 2003 the first aircraft went to Frontier Airlines in the US, with Air France following shortly after. In the end only 80 aircraft were built, produced until 2013. You can find more about the manufacturer on the Airbus page.

Why the A318 stayed so rare

The A318 arrived at a difficult moment. After the attacks of September 2001, demand in aviation collapsed, and at the same time regional jets with around 100 seats pushed onto the market, such as the Embraer E190. These were built considerably lighter for small cabins. The A318, by contrast, carried around the wing and structure of a bigger aircraft – practical for fleet commonality, but a disadvantage in weight and cost per seat.

Many airlines therefore opted straight away for the only slightly bigger A319, which carries more passengers per flight. Later, new designs like the A220-100 and the A220-300 took over the market segment. It is exactly this type that is now replacing the A318 and A319 at Air France: the airline ordered sixty A220-300s in 2019.

For spotters that is the real punchline: an aircraft that never quite took off economically is now a coveted catch. If you don’t have the A318 in your logbook yet, you’d better not wait too long. How to approach such rarities systematically is shown in the article Spotting rare aircraft.

The three features that are enough to identify it

Telling the A318 from its sisters is tricky at first, because nose, windows, engine position and landing gear are almost identical. Three observations will still get you there reliably.

In the end, the registration confirms the type. At Air France that is especially easy because the fleet is manageable: with the registration you look the aircraft up in any database. How registrations are structured is explained in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

A318, A319, A320 or A220?

The most common mix-ups happen within the A320 family and with the A220, which replaces the A318 at Air France. The table shows the key differences.

Feature	A318	A319	A320	A220-300
ICAO type designator	A318	A319	A320	BCS3
Length	31.44 m	33.84 m	37.57 m	38.70 m
Wingspan	34.10 m	34.10 m	34.10 m	35.10 m
Vertical stabilizer	about 75 cm taller	standard	standard	its own design
Typical look	stocky, tall tail	compact	well-balanced	slim, long nose

The A220 is a completely independent design, originally developed by Bombardier as the CSeries. It has a differently shaped, more pointed cockpit, very large engines in proportion to the fuselage and a seating layout with five instead of six seats per row. Next to an A318 it looks slim and modern.

The Boeing 737-700 is also close in size. But it differs already by its more pointed nose, the engines flattened at the bottom with little ground clearance and the tail cone. Basics are covered in Telling Airbus and Boeing apart.

Air France: the last scheduled A318s

Air France was among the launch customers alongside Frontier and was also the largest operator. In total the airline had 18 A318s in its fleet. As of October 2026, four aircraft of these are still in service, operating from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport.

The farewell is dragging on: most recently, the end of scheduled operations was planned for early November 2026. According to the August 2026 schedule, the A318 now stays in use until March 27, 2027. Such dates can shift again with every schedule change – in both directions.

For the 2026/27 winter schedule, the schedules show the following destinations from Paris-CDG regularly with A318s, among others: Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Copenhagen, Dublin, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Rome, Turin, Venice and Warsaw, plus numerous French domestic destinations. Vienna and Zagreb appear only occasionally, Amsterdam and Málaga only for short periods in spring 2027.

Place	Chance of a hit	Why
Paris-CDG	high	Home base of all remaining A318s
Munich	medium	Regular Air France destination in the A318 rotation
Berlin (BER)	medium	Regular Air France destination in the A318 rotation
Vienna	low	Only individual A318 flights in the schedule
Zurich, Hamburg, Frankfurt	very low	No regular A318 operation known

Air France belongs to the Air France-KLM group and to the SkyTeam alliance. There, the A318 is also the last link to a time when airlines could choose a matching Airbus of the A320 family for every route size.

How to follow flights live and filter for the type code A318 is explained in the guide on flight tracking with ADS-B. Which apps are good for this is compared in the article Flight tracker apps compared.

Spotting in Munich and Berlin

In Munich the visitors’ hill (Besucherhügel) is the classic starting point. From there you overlook the apron and taxiways and can see the Air France aircraft taxiing nicely in profile – exactly the perspective in which the A318 shows its proportions. You can find more about the airport itself on the Munich Airport page.

In Berlin the observation deck at BER offers a convenient entry point. You can find airport info under Berlin Brandenburg Airport. At both airports the runway direction in use decides whether the aircraft land or take off on your side. How to judge it in advance is covered in the article Understanding runway direction in use at an airport.

If you are traveling around Europe anyway, you have good chances at further A318 destinations, for example at Flyvergrillen in Copenhagen or at La Muñoza in Madrid. Most rotations are round trips from Paris; after a short turnaround on the ground, the A318 usually heads straight back to CDG.

Whether your vantage point is legally unproblematic is covered in the article Is plane spotting allowed?.

Steep approach and London City: the A318 as a specialist

One capability sets the A318 apart from its sisters: in March 2006 it received approval from the European aviation authority EASA for steep approaches of up to 5.5 degrees instead of the usual roughly 3 degrees. Airbus adapted the software for this; in steep approach mode, among other things, some spoilers extend automatically for extra drag, and the crew gets adapted audio warnings. In May 2006 an A318 landed as a test at the inner-city London City Airport, which requires steep approaches because of its location between high-rises and the Docklands.

It was used mainly by British Airways. From September 2009 the airline flew two A318s with an all-business-class cabin as “Club World London City” between London City and New York-JFK. Because weight restrictions applied on the short runway at London City, they made a fuel stop in Shannon, Ireland, westbound. The service ended with the pandemic, and the second aircraft was retired in July 2020. If you have pictures of an A318 on a steep approach over the London Docklands, you own a real historical document today.

Business and VIP jets based on the A318

Besides the scheduled aircraft, several A318s exist in private hands. In November 2005 Airbus presented the A318 Elite, a business version with a VIP cabin for up to 18 passengers. The launch customer was Comlux Aviation with three aircraft. In addition there are examples in corporate jet configuration from the Airbus Corporate Jets line, often referred to as the ACJ318.

Such aircraft turn up without a fixed schedule: at summits, trade fairs, major sporting events or at airports with heavy business traffic. For spotters they are chance encounters, but they can be intercepted with a tracking service and type filter. How to search specifically for business jets and VIP aircraft is explained in the articles Spotting business jets and Spotting government aircraft.

Photo tips especially for the A318

The A318 is no spectacular subject like an A380, but a rewarding one, because its special feature only shows in the right picture.

You calculate in advance when the light suits your spot; how that works is covered in the guide Planning the sun position for your photo spot. Which gear you need is summarized in the plane spotting gear checklist, and the right focal length in the article Lenses for plane spotting.

Hamburg-Finkenwerder: the home of the A318

All 80 A318s were final-assembled in Hamburg-Finkenwerder, where the A320 family now rolls off the line in large numbers. You will no longer see an A318 roll out there, but the site is central to the family history. How to spot at the factory airport is explained in the article Spotting Airbus Finkenwerder.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

If you are still unsure about identification in general, start with Identifying aircraft types for beginners or the introduction Plane spotting for beginners.

Conclusion

The A318 is an aircraft with charm and quirks: built in Hamburg, an economic niche type, technically a specialist with the steep approach for London City. In scheduled service its last chapter at Air France is playing out right now. A short fuselage and tall tail give you the type, the registration the confirmation – and with a little planning you can catch the last aircraft in Munich, Berlin or right in Paris.