‍DALLAS — On a historic day for the world’s oldest airline, the first Airbus A321neo destined for KLM (KL) made its first flight today at Hamburg-Finkenwerder Airport (XFW) to start testing and customer acceptance.

The airframe, registered as PH-AXA, is the 11,895th Airbus A320 family plane ever built and the first of a large order from the Air France-KLM Group for up to 160 units. The total number to be delivered to KLM is complicated to predict, as the parent company will distribute this brand-new fleet among its subsidiaries, such as Transavia France (TO) and Holland (HV).

The First Commercial Flight to Copenhagen

MSN11895, still wearing the test registration D-AXXQ, took off from Finkenwerder at 10:00UTC, routing over northern Germany and Poland, before returning home almost 3 hours later at 13:00UTC. This is the first of many flights the airframe will go under before being finally received by KLM in the coming weeks.

At the time of writing, the Dutch flag carrier expects to make the commercial debut of the A321neo on September 16, 2024, on flight KL1267, connecting Schiphol Airport (AMS) with Kastrup in Copenhagen (CPH). However, due to operational reasons, the destination, date, and specific flight may change from today onward.

September 2024 will mark the crucial beginning of one of the largest fleet transitions in KLM’s history. KLM will start saying goodbye to its oldest Boeing 737 planes in favor of the more fuel-efficient A320neo family.