Next A330 for SN: 200 or 300? What should/will it be?

[BrightCedars]

I voted A332 because of SN's habit of procuring used aircraft. A recent A333 would be nicer as it's operating cost is lower than the initial A333's SN flies. The A332 has longer legs so is a more versatile than an older A333.

Talking about this, SN's A333s are getting older by the day with no replacement plan in sight.

[Duke]

Talking about this, SN's A333s are getting older by the day with no replacement plan in sight.

Maybe slightly off topic, but could anyone confirm the number of flight hours and cycles of the SN A330-300's?
I guess they are the fleet leaders, given their early serial numbers and extensive use.
What is the design life of an A330-300?

As they all have been recently refurbished, I assume there are no plans to replace them in the near future?

Thanks,

Duke

[JAFflyer]

Talking about this, SN's A333s are getting older by the day with no replacement plan in sight.

That's just because there is absolutely no long term vision at SN. The average age of their 319-320 fleet is about 10 years old and this is a relatively "new" fleet for them (at least the 320 is) They just see one thing: low lease cost so we can save money now. The oldest 330's date from the early 90's and are beginning to show some wear, just talk to some mechanics...
Maybe LH can hook them up with some 330's in the future, as their average fleet age is only 5.8 years.

[Desert Rat]

DSG 60000fh
ISG 90000fh
ESG 120000fh

Something like that...

[HighInTheSky]

OO-SFU, anyone?

[Darjeeling]

You have to look to MTOW figures.

SN operates early A333 with 215t of MTOW. A factory delivered A330-300E now offers 230t/235t thanks to newer engines technologies, enhanced avionics and of course bigger fuel tanks. A 240t variant was even announced in Farnborough earlier this year in order to stop-gap the A350XWB delays and face the 787 in the meantime. Smart move.

So for instance a 2008 delivered A333 has the same MTOW than early 2000s A332 (=230t).

The capabilities of the newest A332s have now been pushed to 238t. With KE operating them on NRT-LAX, ICN-NBO... Air AsiaX will operate those for KUL-Europe flights. KE also operates A333s on ICN-AMS runs without payload penalties.

I personally find amazing to notice how this airplane has evolved over the years. Hence its deserved and unchallenged success.

[convair]

@ 00-ITR

Maybe it's time for SN to look for a couple of younger chicks.

[OO-ITR]

@ 00-ITR

Maybe it's time for SN to look for a couple of younger chicks.

IF available. Would be nice though...

[fcw]

@ 00-ITR

Maybe it's time for SN to look for a couple of younger chicks.

IF available. Would be nice though...

They are available, for those who have money to pay for them...

[Duke]

They are available, for those who have money to pay for them...

Once again, I'm not an expert at all, and I don't know anything about airline economics.
But I don't understand what the risk would be to lease one or two more recent A330's for the African network, even at a higher lease rate than the actual planes.
I understand that the yield on the African routes is high, and that there is a high demand.
One (or two) extra A330's could make SN offer e.g. a daily direct flight Brussels-Kinshasa, without the triangle to Luanda.
Luanda could be served more often, maybe as an extension of the Doula flight.
Brazzaville could be relaunched.
Or maybe a more frequent or a daily direct Nairobi flight, or to Entebbe or Bujumbura without having to do a triangle via Nairobi.
All these flights would be a guaranteed success, and the yield offered by these planes would be a lot higher than the cost of leasing them?
Offering daily connections to important, high yield destinations would attract more passengers?

Am I wrong in reasoning like that?

Regards,

Duke

[RoMax]

It's the combination of acceptable lease costs, age of the aircraft (and the related performance) and combined to these two: availability (a main issue on the A330-market). You are not going to pay much more for a newer aircraft if the operational savings on the rather short long haul flights like Africa or US East coast are not higher than what you save on the lower leasing costs (and newer A333's are damn expensive!).

I believe I read somewhere that the current lease contracts are until 2018 (maybe not for all of them?). Newer (leased) A330's could come after that if it's not a good idea to keep the current fleet, and after that (late 2010's, early 2020's) I assume new 787 or A350's will come in.

[Atlantis]

All these flights would be a guaranteed success, and the yield offered by these planes would be a lot higher than the cost of leasing them?
Offering daily connections to important, high yield destinations would attract more passengers?

Am I wrong in reasoning like that?

Regards,

Duke

If all those flights would be a success, then SN dicided long time ago to fly on it or to keep them in their timetable. SN knows, or at least we hope, what they are doing.

But SN is not Qatar airways or Emirates. Things can be better, of course, but it is like it is. Investments in equipment is needed to make profit in some years and to build your "portfolio" but when you have already debts, then it is not so easy to ask for some money.

They will grown on the way they can. And like we can see every year, they shuffle every aviation season in thier African schedule.

[Conti764]

I agree with flanker on the next US destination: Denver.

It's a UA hub, perfectly located to some premium US markets which SN cannot serve directly, or at least not in the near or even foreseeable future.



This would give customers a one stop connection with LAX, SFO, SEA, IAH, LAS and SAN

[Desert Rat]

DSG 60000fh
ISG 90000fh
ESG 120000fh

Something like that...

Oooops

Design service goal 60000FH/40000FC
Intermediate Service Goal 100000FH/33000FC
Extended Service Goal A330-300 126000FH/40000FC(apr 2016)
Extended Service Goal A330-200 130000FH/40000FC(apr2016)

[Airbus A330]

Hello!
I don't know (yet) if it's related to the topic but I found this about D-AERQ on Skyliner: " Airbus A330 -322 127 D-AERQ Air Berlin ferried 24nov12 DUS-CHR for paint into? ex F-WWKO"

[RoMax]

Hello!
I don't know (yet) if it's related to the topic but I found this about D-AERQ on Skyliner: " Airbus A330 -322 127 D-AERQ Air Berlin ferried 24nov12 DUS-CHR for paint into? ex F-WWKO"

Not to be annoying, it could mean something, but it's a -322. That would be another engine version (tough the same base version as the -321 and -223, which they already have, I believe?). SN may not have too many choices in the A333 market, but It's becoming funny how many different engine versions they have in their A330-fleet, soon they'll have them all (except the RR engines used by LH and LX )

[Bralo20]

According to Wiki (which is a far from reliable source I know), it seems that SN has 2 A330's on order, a A332 and an A333. Don't know who changed it, no source about that either.

[HighInTheSky]

Hello!
I don't know (yet) if it's related to the topic but I found this about D-AERQ on Skyliner: " Airbus A330 -322 127 D-AERQ Air Berlin ferried 24nov12 DUS-CHR for paint into? ex F-WWKO"

Not to be annoying, it could mean something, but it's a -322. That would be another engine version (tough the same base version as the -321 and -223, which they already have, I believe?). SN may not have too many choices in the A333 market, but It's becoming funny how many different engine versions they have in their A330-fleet, soon they'll have them all (except the RR engines used by LH and LX )

OO-SFV and OO-SFW are both A330-322 too...

[RoMax]

OO-SFV and OO-SFW are both A330-322 too...

Oh, than it's not correct on airfleets where they say -321 for these two. The others are -301 and -223. The -322, -321, -223 (and probably more) are all PW engines, but all slightly different versions, the -301 is one of the GE engines they offer on the A330.

[teddybAIR]

A better question would be:

What are proper criteria to evaluate a type's suitability within an airline? And by that I mean the rational criteria an airline most certainly uses, not the emotional criteria that we aviation enthousiasts use