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By Howard Hardee
Aug. 12, 2026, © Leeham News: While many airline fleet planners clamor for a stretched variant of the Airbus A220 closer to the heart of the narrowbody market, Adam Scott—chief executive of BermudAir—is interested in going even smaller after placing a firm order for 10 Airbus A220-300s at last month’s Farnborough International Airshow.
Scott recently told Leeham News and Analysis (LNA) that he would eventually like to operate A220-100s, the smallest aircraft in the family, on targeted “thin” routes in the Americas.
“Generally, people have been looking to upgauge rather than downgauge, so everybody’s looking for stretches; everybody’s calling for the A220-500,” he said. “That typically works for a lot of the routes that [airlines] would otherwise fly these aircraft on. We’re also looking more at performance. We still spend a lot of time looking at the A220-100.
“Where we’re going with the -300 is very exciting, and I think it’s the right aircraft for us, but we reserve our interest in also exploring longer-term what the -100 can do in markets where that may make more sense.”
BermudAir has operated Embraer E-Jets since launching scheduled passenger service in 2023, but it has placed an order for 10 A220s and plans to add more before 2030. Photo credit: Bermudair/LinkedIn
BermudAir will configure its incoming A220-300s with 135 seats—likely with 12 business-class seats and 40 premium economy seats. Economy class will be arranged in a two- to three-seat setup.
The carrier’s fleet-growth plan calls for seven A220s by the end of the year, at least 10 jets by the end of 2027, and more than 20 A220s by the end of the decade.
BermudAir’s fleet of four Embraer E-Jets will be phased out as leases expire in coming years, eventually making the carrier a single-type Airbus operator. But the carrier is not rushing to retire its Embraer aircraft, which Scott said are a “step up in terms of customer experience versus some of our competitors,” while it waits for the potentially transformative A220 order.
“In layman’s terms, the A220 is to my mind the narrowbody equivalent of what the [787] Dreamliner represents,” he said. “All of a sudden, you can fly longer, more point-to-point markets, with greater efficiencies. Our markets like Bermuda have 65,000 people, and we don’t need a 200-seat aircraft. We’ve done really well with 70, now 96 and soon to be 135 seats as we’ve matured and grown these markets.”
