During the pandemic American Airlines retired a lot of planes. They simplified their fleet, so that they’d only operate Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 narrowbody families, and Boeing 787 and 777 widebodies.
That meant sending Boeing 757s, 767s, Airbus A330-200s and Airbus A330-300s to the desert along with their Embraer E-195s. Some of the 757s went to Northern Pacific, 767s to Amazon, and Airbus A330s remained parked.
It was a shame because without that capacity, American couldn’t take advantage of the boom in travel to Europe once borders re-opened. They lacked the cheap lift that would let them experiment on new routes, where a Boeing 787 or 777 is too costly. And, of course, deliveries of new Boeing 787s that American had ordered were delayed (both by Boeing, and by American which has deferred some of their 787-9 orders).
The thing about those Airbus A330s is that American Airlines was even still paying for some of them but not using the planes – at least with leased Airbus A330-300s, while American owned the A330-200s.
Now, aviation watchdog JonNYC says that American Airlines partner (and one-time enemy) Qatar Airways is looking at the fleet of stored Airbus A330-200s for their own operatoins.
I'm hearing that Qatar is taking a peek at the AA 330-200s stored in the desert. I assume the AA lease term is coming to an end
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) November 19, 2024
Even though the Airbus A330-200s were parked four and a half years ago, that fleet is still only about 13 years old on average. It was larger in quantity and newer than the 9 orphan -300s which were certainly on the way out, even without the pandemic.
These planes were ex-US Airways, from shortly before taking over American, and had just been retrofit to offer premium economy before being parked. They have 20 business class, 21 premium economy, and 206 coach seats. With old US Airways Envoy business class seats, Qatar would certainly retrofit these interiors before placing the aircraft into service.
Qatar Airways has complained about widebody aircraft order delays, placed an order for 20 more Boeing 777-9 aircraft (which isn’t yet in commercial service), and could make another sizeable widebody order. Used Airbus A330s could be a stopgap, adding to a small existing fleet of the plane type.
Why didn’t AA bring those planes back in service if they needed the capacity post-COVID?
And here I thought The Premium Airline would revive them. After all they are aging aircraft experts.
Hindsight is always 20/20. 15 orphan A330-200s was probably not a big enough fleet to offset the additional cost of a specialized pilot subgroup – and only American’s management and planning teams can truly know those costs and the lost opportunities associated with the grounding of that fleet. We don’t have enough data to reach a rational conclusion – all we can do is guess. The US A330-300s were old back then, and weren’t long for the world. As I see it, Qatar is a good fit for these aircraft. They were fitted with Rolls Royce engines because US ordered A350s at about the same time..Qatar has a fairly large fleet of A350s, so the engines are compatible.
MIAZiggy,
The world’s only PERFECT airline’s A330-200s have different engines than these aircraft do.
@Daniel B – they decided it would be too expensive, they no longer had pilots current on it, seniority lists and maintenance/parts
Doug Parker and Isom with another boneheaded move, retiring fully paid for A330-200s when they could have parked them in the desert for a year or two for peanuts and fly them on transatlantic routes for premium RASM, fully loaded to Europe, for another decade.
Qatar was really set back by their a350 debacle with Airbus, already reviving old 773s (the dreaded 2-2-2 in business) and borrowing old Cathay Pacific 3-class for DOH-MLE in recent years. This will be interesting whether the airline overhauls the interior, or just does quick cosmetic touchups, or cannibalizes them for parts (but I think that’s unlikely as their are more cost effective ways to get parts; they aren’t a sanctioned airline, like Aeroflot, after all). I have upcoming flights with them in 2025, so will be interesting to see whether any routes I take will be on these older birds.