The Airbus A330 is lost in the pandemic’s economic Twilight Zone

The venerable twin is stuck between aircraft that are better at being old and those that are better at being new.

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Release Date
March 17, 2021
The Airbus A330 is lost in the pandemic’s economic Twilight Zone
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  • The A330 is Airbus’s best-selling twin-aisle aircraft and sold in incredible numbers over the last decade ahead of a generation of all-new designs.
  • That has left a surplus of twin-aisle aircraft firmly in place before the pandemic hit, throwing the market into deep uncertainty as those aircraft were too cheap to sell, but too-expensive to part-out.
  • Parking the surplus A330s in anticipation of better times remains the least-bad alternative for owners and lessors.

2021 is not a good time to own a wide-body passenger aircraft. Even as traffic continues its slow return, it is the long-haul, international traveler that has yet to return – and the very passenger on which the wide-body aircraft most relies.

As the remaining passenger market temporarily shifts to a short-haul, domestic form of travel, the requirement for smaller narrow-body aircraft has proven to be more buoyant than their wide-body counterparts. This trend is both intuitive and apparent in the data, as outlined by TAC Analysis in late summer, 2020.

Related: Aircraft out of storage and into the frying pan

Yet, within the widebody segment there remains a diverse fleet of aircraft experiencing varying levels of impact. The mid-sized wide-body segment spanning approximately 250 to 350 seats necessitates a closer look as it grapples with an abundance of classic aircraft and a strong order book for a new generation. Alongside the comparatively recent introductions of the Boeing 787-8 and -9, as well as the Airbus A350-900 and A330-900neo, the mid-sized segment was home to an already robust fleet of aircraft, including the 777-200ER and most notably, the A330-200 and -300.

It is the latter of these aircraft, the classic A330 and its market potential where we focus our attention for this TAC Analysis amidst a clear twin-aisle aircraft recession. How is the aircraft faring in the new mid-pandemic/pre-recovery market, and what factors are at play which could define its ultimate value to airlines and lessors?

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