Summary
- The A330neo will operate just one in 56 widebody flights in October.
- The top five airports to see them are Lisbon, New York JFK, London LHR, Frankfurt, and Manila.
- LOT Polish will wet lease an Air Belgium A330-900 from the end of the month, joining British Airways.
Airlines using the Airbus A330neo – whether the A330-900 or less-popular A330-800 – will fly them to 101 airports globally in October, whether once or frequently. According to ch-aviation.com, there are, funnily enough, 101 active passenger aircraft across 21 operators. Combined, they have about 4,300 flights this month.
The top five airports for A330neos
The following table summarizes the world’s busiest airports for A330neo flights, based on analysis of Cirium data. Of these, only two make the world’s leading widebody airport list.
All the following carriers will deploy the A330-900 except one: Kuwait Airways at New York JFK. The airline will continue to use the A330-800 until it switches to the Boeing 777-300ER on October 29th.
|
Rank |
Airport |
October A330neo departing flights* |
Airline(s) in order of flights |
A330neo destinations**** |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Lisbon |
422 |
TAP Portugal, Azul, Orbest |
19 |
|
2 |
New York JFK |
300 |
Delta, Virgin, Kuwait Airways**, ITA Airways, TAP Portugal, LOT Polish*** |
12 |
|
3 |
London LHR |
251 |
Virgin, Delta, British Airways***, Air Mauritius |
9 |
|
4 |
Frankfurt |
193 |
Condor |
17 |
|
5 |
Manila |
161 |
Cebu Pacific |
10 |
|
* Each way |
*** Until October 29th **** Using Air Belgium equipment (see below) |
**** October only, even if just once, across all airlines |
British Airways and LOT Polish
British Airways continues to use an A330-900 wet-leased from Air Belgium, which is exclusively flown between London Heathrow and Chicago O’Hare.
Registered OO-ABG (shown below), it is on BA295 outbound, leaving London Heathrow at 10:35 and arriving in the US at 13:15. (A330-200 OE-LAC was used on three occasions in September.) Operating daily, the route will cease seeing the A330-900 on November 14th, after which British Airways’ A380 will take over.
Meanwhile, LOT Polish will use an Air Belgium A330-900 between Warsaw and New York JFK from October 29th, when airlines in the North Hemisphere switch to winter schedules. Some six of LOT’s eight weekly flights on that route will use the A330-900, the remaining two by the 787-8 and 787-9.
Fourteen US airports will see it
Analysis of schedules shows that 14 US airports will see the A330neo in October, shown on the map below. Notice that Atlanta does not feature this month. According to Cirium, it last saw Delta’s A330-900s in September and they’re scheduled to reappear next March.
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The US accounts for about one in four A330neo flights globally, with service by Delta, Virgin, TAP, Condor, Azul, ITA, British Airways (by Air Belgium), Kuwait Airways, and LOT Polish (by Air Belgium).
Image: GCMap
Honolulu stands out. It has just one A330neo flight in October: Delta DL307 to Minneapolis on the 28th. The operating 281-seat A330-900 will arrive from JFK at 15:00, the US’ second longest domestic route, before departing for Minnesota at 17:15. After that, no A330neo is scheduled to/from Hawaii – for now.
Will you be flying the type this month? If so, let us know where you’re going by commenting.
Sources of information: Cirium, Google Flights, FlightRadar24.com, ch-aviation.com