Summary
- SriLankan Airlines expands its widebody capability with an A330 wet-leased from Air Belgium.
- The A330 will initially operate on international routes to Dhaka, Dubai, and Frankfurt.
- The addition of this aircraft boosts SriLankan’s long-haul capability and complements its current A330 fleet.
SriLankan Airlines has bolstered its widebody capability with an A330 wet-leased from Air Belgium. The jet will enter service in the approaching days on its international routes to Dhaka, Dubai and Frankfurt.
SriLankan adds A330 from Air Belgium
The Sri Lankan flag carrier made the announcement on its social media channels on Christmas Day. The deal will see it wet lease in an Airbus A330-200 (registration: OE-LAC) from the Belgian carrier, adding to its ten-strong A330 fleet.
In line with data from Flightradar24, the two-class A330 – seating 22 in business and 240 in economy – has been operating flights on behalf of French carrier Corsair and Air Senegal in the previous couple of months. It is going to now boost SriLankan’s long-haul capability and is as a consequence of enter service on December 29, flying to the likes of Dhaka, Dubai and Frankfurt.
About OE-LAC
The aircraft is a ten-year-old A330-200 delivered to Air Belgium in November 2022 as a part of a leasing cope with Altavair AirFinance. The plane previously flew under Etihad Airways for over five years between 2014 and 2019, and spent almost two years in storage at Teruel Airport (TEV) over the pandemic.
The A330 was delivered to SriLankan’s base at Colombo (CMB) on December 24 following a nine-and-a-half hour flight from Brussels (BRU). The aircraft is powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines and, in accordance with data from ch-aviation, has accomplished over 30,275 flight hours as of September 30, 2023.
SriLankan has an extended history with the A330-200 having first flown the sort way back in 1999. Its fleet of the -200 has subsequently been whittled right down to just three (not including OE-LAC), with a mean age approaching 20 years old. The airline’s widebody fleet also consists of the A330-300, of which it operates seven with a mean age of over 8.5 years old.
Second plane in per week
Having been on the hunt for extra narrowbody capability within the A320 for the reason that summer, the carrier inducted one other Airbus A320-200 on December 21, taking it to 6 of this sort and eight A320-family planes overall (it also has two A320neos).
Photo: SriLankan Airlines
The aircraft (registration: 4R-ABS) offers capability for as much as 150 passengers in a two-class configuration – 12 in business and 138 in economy. It is going to primarily be deployed on the carrier’s short-to-medium haul routes across the Indian subcontinent, Middle East and Far East, and can operate its first business service on December 29, the identical day its wet-leased A330 will begin flying.
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