Originally Posted by andymcdonnell

If only they had some widebodies parked that could still do a job. Oh wait…

Originally Posted by jerseytom

They don't have any type-rated pilots to fly them, and I wouldn't be surprised if all the spare parts and infrastructure to support them are long gone. Hell, I think you'd have to get all the maintenance folks type-rated on it again as well.

It's not an ideal situation, but I can't see it making any sense to commit the investment to re-introduce a new type to the fleet to cover some routes to Europe in winter.

Originally Posted by PHL

They have type rated pilots, but they would need to go for recurrency training.
To my knowledge, A&P's aren't type rated. A mechanic can be working on a Cessna 172 one day and go work on a 787 the next, in theory. That doesn't take into account whatever is in the airline ops requirements though.

All that being said, I think it's been well established that the 330 fleet was parked prematurely. But I don't think anyone gave it much criticism when the decision was made when everyone thought air travel would take quite some time to rebound. AA was in the worst financial shape of the US3, though I wonder what the actual cost would have been to keep operating them since they were (still are) owned without lease payments. 5 of the original year 2000 deliveries of the A333 show scrapped between Oct 2023 and April 2024 on airfleets. Based on that progression of roughly 1 per month, it makes me wonder if they're working their way through them alll and selling off the parts. Who was it that once said the sum of the parts is greater than the whole?

Had there been no COVID, they would have likely kept them longer than planned when the 787 delays started stacking up in 2021.