Qatar Airways is reportedly considering the acquisition of several former American Airlines Airbus A330 widebodied aircraft to plug the capacity gap caused by the delay to new aircraft being delivered from both Airbus and Boeing. The aircraft concerned were inherited by American Airlines when it merged with US Airways in December 2013, but since the pandemic have been mothballed in long-term storage in the United States.
Aviation industry commentator JonNYC stated on social media that Doha-based Qatar Airways is considering a deal with its oneworld partner American Airlines to acquire a number of the mothballed jets for deployment within its own widebody fleet. The aircraft, should they be acquired by the carrier, are likely to be repainted and retrofitted with Qatar’s onboard product to ensure fleet consistency and a seamless customer experience.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the US-based carrier consolidated its fleet around four core families of aircraft – the Boeing 737, 777, 787, and Airbus A320 family. This strategic decision saw dozens of other types retired from service, namely the Boeing 757, 767, Airbus A330-200, and A330-300s, as well as dozens of regional jets.
The A330s in storage comprise 15 of the longer-range A330-200s, plus nine A330-300s. It is the A330-200s that Qatar Airways is reportedly interested in, which would offer the Gulf-based carrier both range and capacity for regional and long-haul services. According to ch-aviation, these aircraft are currently stored at Roswell Air Center (ROW) in New Mexico, having arrived at the facility between February 2020 and April 2020.
The aircraft are configured to accommodate 247 passengers in a three-class layout (20 business, 21 premium economy, and 206 economy) and were retrofitted not long before being grounded. The fleet has an average age of 13 years.
Qatar Airways is struggling to cope with the increase in demand for air travel post-pandemic and is thought to be looking at ways to boost its fleet to meet that demand. The carrier has been hit with ongoing delivery delays to new Boeing 787 Dreamliners plus the entry into service of the 60 Boeing 777X aircraft that it has on order has recently been put back to 2026 at the earliest, making the model now six years late compared what was originally promised by Boeing.
In recent months, to deal with its capacity shortfall, the carrier has also been wet-leasing four Oman Air A330-200s (226 passengers) plus three A330-300s from the same airline (289 seats). It also operates its own fleet of A330s, utilizing two A330-200s and eight A330-300s, seating 260 and 305 passengers respectively.