Air France to Retire A318 in November 2026, Final Operations on 37 Routes

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Air France will operate its final scheduled passenger flight with the Airbus A318 on November 8, 2026, marking the official exit of the smallest member of the Airbus A320 family from global scheduled passenger service and bringing an end to Air France's 23-year history of operating the A318.

Currently, Air France is the only airline worldwide operating scheduled passenger flights with the A318. According to flight schedule data from aviation data analytics company Cirium, between September and November 2026, Air France will operate 37 A318 routes departing from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). The final scheduled flight is set for 9:15 PM on November 8, bound for Toulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS).

During the final weeks of service, the Air France A318 fleet will operate 621 one-way flights across 37 routes, spanning September through November. Domestic routes account for the majority of the schedule: 329 flights across 9 French domestic routes, representing approximately 53% of the total. Marseille Provence Airport (MRS) is the busiest destination, welcoming 121 A318 one-way flights; Toulouse follows with 65 flights, Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport (BOD) and Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport (LYS) each see 40 flights, and Nice Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE) and Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) each have 33. These six busiest routes alone account for more than half of the remaining A318 flights.

Internationally, Air France A318 flights will cover 13 countries, ranked by flight volume: Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Croatia, Ireland, Hungary, Switzerland, and Morocco. Italy is the busiest, with 10 destinations and 92 flights, ahead of Spain with 4 routes and Germany with 3 routes.

On the final day, November 8, Air France plans to operate 12 A318 flights from Paris CDG, serving 10 destinations across 5 countries. The first flight departs at 7:10 AM for Milan Linate, and the last is the 9:15 PM flight to Toulouse, scheduled to arrive at 10:35 PM. This flight carries symbolic weight—Toulouse is the headquarters of Airbus, although the A318 was actually assembled at the Hamburg-Finkenwerder facility, not in southern France. On that day, Toulouse and Lyon each have two flights, and both Milan airports are also served; the longest route is the 3:45 PM flight to Warsaw, scheduled for 2 hours and 15 minutes, while the two Lyon flights tie for the shortest at 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Air France had originally planned to retire all A318s at the end of the summer season on October 24, but subsequently decided to extend the schedule by two weeks. The airline currently has only four A318s remaining in its fleet, with registrations F-GUGM, F-GUGN, F-GUGO, and F-GUGP, all delivered in 2006, meaning they will be 20 years old at retirement.

The A318, which entered service in 2003, will become the first aircraft type in Airbus's product line to fully exit scheduled passenger service. Airbus still has several older models operating in the passenger market, such as the A300 and A310, which continue to fly scheduled routes with Iranian airlines, and the A340, which remains in service with carriers including Lufthansa.

Air France is the largest customer of the A318, having operated 18 of the 80 units built by Airbus. Other airlines that have flown the type include Avianca, British Airways, and Frontier Airlines. After TAROM retired its fleet in 2024, Air France became the final operator of A318 passenger flights.

The A318 will not disappear entirely—nearly 20 remain in service as business jets and government aircraft, accounting for about a quarter of the type's total production. But from November 2026 onward, this aircraft, nicknamed the "Baby Bus," will permanently bid farewell to scheduled passenger service.