Airbus begins maiden flight of hot-selling A320neo

TOULOUSE France (Reuters) - Airbus began the maiden test flight on Thursday of an upgraded passenger jet on which it expects to generate hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue in the coming two decades.

The A320neo took off in hazy sunshine in Toulouse, southwest France, 27 years after the original A320 first took to the skies and opened up fierce competition with Boeing's medium-haul 737.

Powered by a new type of engine from Pratt & Whitney , the A320neo began a two-and-a-half hour test flight at 12:00 local time (1000 GMT), starting a year of flight trials.

Airbus has sold 3,257 of the A320neo, which it promises will be 15 percent more efficient than the current model when it enters service in the fourth quarter of 2015, and said earlier it expects to top 3,500 total orders by the end of this year.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Natalie Huet)