Why did AA sell their Airbus A330's?
 

Delta is buying new ones. AA has gotten rid of the 332 and 333's. It's not like they have an issue with using Airbus aircraft. How different really is Delta's network and American's that one chooses this aircraft and another doesn't?

American Airlines has 67 Boeing 777s in its fleet, consisting of 47 -200ERs and 20 -300ERs. Additionally, AA has 40+ Boeing 787s consisting of -8s and -9s.

AA had a smaller widebody Airbus fleet, which consisted of 24 Airbus A330s pre-COVID (15 -200s and 9 -300s).

The A330-300s were set to leave the fleet within the next few years and be replaced by upcoming 787-9s. In contrast, AA had just begun to retrofit the A330-200s with new Economy Class seats and recently finished adding Premium Economy. However, because of the downturn in long-haul/international demand with COVID, AA chose to cut costs and simplify its fleet, which also included the early retirement of all Boeing 757s and 767s. Essentially, instead of operating a complex fleet with numerous aircraft variants, AA will simply focus on two widebody Families - the Boeing 777 and 787 - and two narrowbody Families - the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.

As for Delta, don't forget they had a similar strategy, but it favors Airbus over Boeing. They significantly accelerated the retirement of their 18 Boeing 777s, all of which were retired last year. Delta also announced the gradual phase out of Boeing 767s through 2025. Now their widebody fleet going forward is expected to consist of Airbus A330s, A350s, and Boeing 767s. Both of these airlines will continue to see lower international demand over the next few years, so they chose to remove a portion of their widebody fleet and simplify it.

Thanks for a very detailed and informative response!

Were the A330s leased or owned?

Glad it's gone, the a330 had the ugliest J class seat...and considering they have the 787 and 777 there's no need for the a330

Weren’t their A330s the old featureless USAir planes? Good riddance if so!

Define featureless? Their interiors were older, but they were 1-2-1 up front and had IFE at every seat. They were nicer than the AA NGBC 777s by far

The envoy suites on the A330 are the reverse herringbone seats, way better than the zodiac "rockin" chairs on AA's 788 and half of 772. LAA was the one had the featureless 752 and 763 aka no in seat PTV and instead hand out ipads and collect them two hours before landing

I'd take the A330 Business Class seat over the crAAp seats on the 772 or 787-8 (except for the NEW 787-8) any day.

The A332s were leased from AerCap (nee ILFC). I think the A333s were owned, but I can't be sure.

I think AA are on record on earnings calls as saying the fleet strategy was to get rid of mini fleets like the A330s, I'm nearly certain they were planning these retirements pre COVID too.

Big loss for the Y PaxEx for sure, you just can't beat 2-4-2 over the Atlantic. Those MCE's on the RHS of the A332s were the best long haul economy seats in the fleet imo.

I thought the A330 seats seemed quite dated stylistically, and in a few ways lacked the privacy features of the newer seats, but they were the first reverse herringbone seats put in by a US airline.

I'll miss the 2-4-2 layout in economy.

US was a pretty bare-bones airline so these aircraft were ordered with pretty basic appointments though I never really understood the weird light faux wood wallpaper they decide to put on the bulkheads in J and on the side tables. That always seemed really out of place on the aircraft and gave the J cabin the feel of a locker room or something.

Where did the 330's go? The desert? Scrapped?

Has AA had any interest in the 220's?

The A330s serving CLT and PHL were ex US Airways. AA is putting 787s on plenty of routes in PHL and CLT moving forward. AA still purchases A321 series. So they use both Boeing end Airbus.

Just to clarify, all A330s were pmUS. AA never operated the A330.

AA was planning to retire the a333s, but not the a332s in the short to medium term (pre-COVID). The a332s were very young.

Major disruptions to global travel have always been catalysts for airlines to say "sayonara" to subfleets that had upcoming exit dates more quickly than they otherwise would have. If you remember back to 9/11, US Airways had a large number of F-100s, 737-200s and MD-80s in its fleet. The 737s were parked basically immediately, the F-100 and the MD-80 exit schedules were sped up.

American did the same with their MD-11s.

The A330-300s had crew commonality with the A-330-200s which allowed for cross-crewing. But the vintages were quite different with the -300s being delivered between 2000 and 2001. The -200s were delivered from 2009 and 2014. They also had different engines so there was air frame commonality but not powerplant commonality. With the 9 -300s gone by end of 2022 or 2023 (then pushed up), the economic case for retaining all the parts and tooling and simulator equipment and pilot certifications/type ratings for 15 -200s became harder to justify. In addition, in terms of seat count and profile, the 787-8 is close match for the A-330-200. The 787-9 is a closer match for the A-330-300 but has much, much longer range.

The 333s were in pretty pathetic shape with a pathetic and tacky product by the end. My July 2019 flight on one was one of the least enjoyable J experiences I’ve had in the last decade. Crew was terrible too.

a far cry from their original introduction when they had a 6 seat international F cabin under management that wanted F and J to Europe to be equivalent to BA standards. Caymus was the standard red as I recall.

I don’t like they getting rid of A330 aircraft. They want keep it for a little bit longer. I think Delta likely to acquired A330 from American Airlines. This could be better works.

US Airways was the first U.S.-flag carrier to offer lie-flat and all-aisle access in the business cabin, in a 1-2-1 configuration. At the time of the AA-US merger, AA's business product was still recliner seats, in a 2-3-2 configuration.

Not entirely accurate. By the time of the merger AA already had a number of 77Ws in the fleet equipped with the J seats they currently offer. The 772s and 767s had the older angle-flat J seats though keep in mind the 772s also had sizable F cabins with 1-2-1. The recliners were all long gone many years before the merger.

on a 3 hour flight

this was before US merged with AW?

Doubtful. AA has the largest fleet of A319s which fill a similar mission.

Got it. I thought perhaps the 220 was a good (more economical) replacement for the CR9.

The 220 is a better replacement for a 73G or 319 as it's considerably larger than a CR9. AA realistically should start phasing out some of the older 319s and replace them with 220s to remain ahead of the shifting aircraft dynamic. The 319 offers little to nothing that the 220 doesn't.

Not to the M11, almost all of 772 were delivered before 9/11/2001, I was already flying 772 on SEA-NRT, SJC-NRT, and ORD-NRT back in 1999, the M11 were basically useless junk from the beginning that AA just want to get rid of them as fast as possible, totally unrelated to any global events.

You should remember at one point AA had to lease DC10-30ER to sub for M11 for DFW-NRT as the performance on range of M11 was so bad when they were first delivered

There were several 777's left with 2-3-2 recliner seats several years after the US-AA merger. I was on some of those flights :eek:

Totally different cockpit design, totally different engine, totally different parts cache. Different pilot group. The flexibility in the A319/320/321 and 737-800/737-800Max is the large pool of pilots that can fly those planes and switch planes in IRROPS situations.

In any event, AA -had- a small aircraft fleet: the E-190s. AA parked them owing to COVID.

AA is all about fleet simplification. This is an approach that has been highly successful at Southwest, and AA is really way ahead of Delta and United on that front. If AA sees an opportunity in the A220 space, there are better choices for AA based on staying with the current fleet rationalization. Southwest faced this decision point and went with the Max-7. With AA as the largest A320 series operator in the world, the 319 NEO might also be a viable choice.

I did not know this. Interesting. I thought for sure it would have been one of the big European based budget airlines.

I think you're mixing two different products here. There were two variations of 2-3-2 seating on AA 777s, the earlier version were recliners (made by Weber if I remember correctly?), though these seats were gone by ~2010ish to the best of my memory. The NGBC seat (made by Recaro) was also 2-3-2 but angle-flat and was the J seat installed across the entire 772, 763, and 75L fleet at the time of the merger. The 767-200 still used recliner style seats in F and J but was only used on transcons and a few MIA-JFK turns. The 77W used the seats it currently uses in J.

No doubt fleet simplification has its merits, though AA isn't Southwest (and to be honest Southwest will probably never fly anything other than a 737). The cost structure, network, and operation in general are very different. Delta, despite having (had) a very diverse fleet managed to be the most profitable of any of these airlines in the preceding decade, partly by being able to adapt the exact right size aircraft to each flight. This isn't to say a fleet of 20 A220s would be the right call, it certainly wouldn't, however a fleet of ~150 to replace the far less efficient A319 would likely offer a compelling reason to have another pilot group, one that's also likely to be paid a bit less.

Closest would be EasyJet with ~315. But they're still about 100 shy of AA. AA has a lot of A321s, most inherited.

I agree about the simplification, but I don't see AA ordering the a319neo. They have a bunch of relatively young a319s now and as the older ones (LUS) get phased out, I expect they'll be replaced by 737s and a320s.

The a319neo has flopped (as likely will the MAX7) because it fills an awkward spot of nearly the same operational costs as the bigger sibling and less revenue and flexibility.

Long term, I suspect AA will end up with the 737MAX8 and the A321Neo as their two gauges of narrow body.

Actually, the original A330-300s were ordered by US Airways well before the merger with America West. Back then, US Airways even offered a one-row First Class cabin with an amazing soft service which even included flowers in the F lavatory. Unfortunately, US Airways was plagued by a lousy Revenue Management team (many of whom ended up at Spirit because no other airline would hire them) who thought that they could price their F product higher than Air France/British Airways/Lufthansa without a lot of corporate contracts and that strategy failed miserably on them.

The light faux paneling and other cheap things took place under Parker's lack of leadership for the A330-200 fleet post merger.

According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_fleet delta is acquiring the A330 fleet.

There is no source given, but it does seem like a good place for them to go. I wonder if DL will refit them with the D1 suites they currently have on their 339s, or if they will press them into service with new seat covers like the LATAM A350s.

I would take that with a grain of salt. Any time any aircraft is up for sale, the internet seems to think DL will buy them.

That said, it isn't out of the question. IIRC, the a332 fleet is PW powered, which should give it commonality with DLs a330ceo fleet (the neos are RR)

The A330-300s dated back to the Stephen Wolf era. First delivered in early 2000. I flew on one in late 2000 to London. And came back as one of two passengers in the 6-passenger F class cabin.

Nothing under Stephen Wolf was done cheap at the time. The cheap stuff started after BK #1, well after Wolf and Gangwal departed the scene. I think Siegel started it, and Parker only continued and expanded it. The US Airways I know was a great carrier that served me well for many, many years. And, actually America West was too back in the day. Unfortunately, so many know them only as the combined entity, where a lot of the stuff we all complain about started.

That being said, International F = Employee Class. It never sold well and was mostly employees (many of whom I was friends with back then).

It appears the lack of source is the cause for this change to be reverted: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec...iffmode=source