Summary
- American Airlines retired its young fleet of Airbus A330s firstly of the pandemic, but rumors suggest they might come back.
- American deleted a press release concerning the retirement of the A330s, and while they deny any internal memo regarding their return, the press release isn’t any longer available on their website.
- Bringing back the A330s can be a challenge, as they’ve not flown in over three years and would require significant work and retraining of personnel.
American Airlines retired its young fleet of Airbus A330s firstly of the pandemic. Since then, the airline has never stated any intention of bringing back the aircraft type. But today, rumors surfaced that the Airbus widebodies may come back. Easy Flying has contacted American Airlines for a press release and has not received a reply on the time of publication.
Could the rumors prove to be true?
American’s retirement of the A330s can have come as a surprise to some, because the aircraft were young, and to others, it can have been expected due to COVID-19 pandemic. Delta Air Lines retired its Boeing 777s, several airlines retired their Boeing 747s, and a few airlines even removed their Airbus A380s. Between February and April 2020, all of American’s A330s got sent to Roswell to be stored, and later within the yr, American announced the fleet’s retirement.
Earlier today, Twitter user JT Genter, a points and miles author, posted that American Airlines had deleted its press release from April 2020 announcing the retirement of several aircraft types, including the A330s. He also shared that somebody told him there was an internal memo regarding the A330s, but American has since contacted JT and told him there was no internal memo.
In his original Tweet, Genter wrote,
“American Airlines is bringing back the Airbus A330-200… Now the airline is planning on bringing the A330s back in preparation for summer 2024, basing them in PHL, MIA, and CLT.”
Though American told Genter there was no internal memo stating the A330s can be brought back, the 2020 press release regarding aircraft retirements shouldn’t be available on the American Airlines newsroom.
As of late May, a lot of the A330s were still in Roswell and had not been passed on to other owners. Easy Flying wrote an evaluation of where all 24 aircraft were positioned, which will be read below.
The history of American’s Airbus A330s
The Airbus A330s joined American Airlines’ fleet throughout the merger with US Airways. 24 A330s were integrated, fifteen -200s and nine -300s. The airline already operated Boeing widebodies, so fleet optimization was sure to come back in some unspecified time in the future. That ‘some point’ got here almost immediately after the start of the catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: Dirk Daniel Mann | Shutterstock
Though the aircraft are young, especially when put next to American’s 777 fleet, bringing them back can be no easy task. The A330s haven’t flown for greater than three years, and a major amount of labor would must be done to get them airworthy again. Moreover, personnel could pose a challenge, as there are currently no Airbus widebodies in American’s fleet. Pilots and mechanics would must be retrained and re-certified for the airline to operate the kind again.
Would you prefer to see American Airlines’ A330s fly again? Tell us within the comments below.