The Airbus A310 was the first wide-body airliner to use a two-person flight deck.
Earlier wide-body aircraft, including the Airbus A300, commonly carried three flight-deck crew members: two pilots and a flight engineer. The A310 introduced a digital flight deck designed around two pilots, with systems automation replacing many tasks previously handled by the flight engineer.
This arrangement helped establish the cockpit layout that became standard on later Airbus airliners. The A310’s flight deck used electronic displays rather than the large collection of conventional electromechanical instruments found on earlier aircraft. Its cockpit design also helped Airbus develop commonality across later families.
The A310 should not be confused with the A320, which later became famous for introducing digital fly-by-wire controls to a commercial airliner. The A310 preceded the A320 and used a different control architecture, although it was an important step toward Airbus’s increasingly automated cockpit philosophy. The two-person crew concept subsequently appeared on aircraft such as the A320, A330, A340 and A350.