Airbus A321, different emergency exit positioning

[FinsburyPark]

So I flew on Wizz Air and thought I was on an A320.

Its only until I looked on the fleet list of Wizz Air UK and noticed the UK side of Wizz Air is all A321 only.

I got confused as the positioning of the exits was different to what I was used to seeing.

I've looked up the aircraft type on wikipedia and it appears this is a thing.

Depending on the aircraft spec, the positioning of the exits and number of exits differs.

Why is this?

 

[sjoh]

Usually because there need to be a certain number of exits per no. of passengers. If they squeeze in an extra row of seats or 2 it sometimes tips the balance towards needing another exit. Easyjet's A319s have an additional exit on each overwing for this reason.

 

[Snow1964]

It also depends if it is an A321 (original classic version), or the new Neo version.

Most European airlines have the new version in high density with around 39 or 40 rows of seats (exact number depends on toilets and galley provision).
With this number of passengers, there will be double emergency exits over each wing.

Airline regulations require max 50 passengers per cabin assistant, so A321s normally have 5 cabin crew, as upto 240 passengers. There is sometimes a crew seat near the middle exit doors instead of row of 3 seats. The smaller A320 (normally max about 180 passengers) only need 4 cabin crew so don't have the mid cabin crew seat, just 2 at front and 2 at back.

With the smaller A319 if it was secondhand and originally with an airline with fewer seats then likely to only have one over wing emergency exit. But A319s are rapidly decreasing in numbers as airlines replace them with new longer versions (more economic as more passengers per pilot and flight officer, so unit cost is lower), so being scheduled on an A319 is less likely as time goes on.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

It also depends if it is an A321 (original classic version), or the new Neo version.

Looking in the airliner version of the Combined Volume, all the Wizzair UK fleet are neo, but they have two different versions of the neo.

Those registered in the G-WUKx and G-WUNx sequence are A321-271NX while those registered in the G-XLRx sequence are the A321-271NY variant.

 

[sh24]

With the smaller A319 if it was secondhand and originally with an airline with fewer seats then likely to only have one over wing emergency exit. But A319s are rapidly decreasing in numbers as airlines replace them with new longer versions (more economic as more passengers per pilot and flight officer, so unit cost is lower), so being scheduled on an A319 is less likely as time goes on.

I think only Easyjet had a higher density A319 with 2 emergency exits.