American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) has resolved to park its fifteen A330-200s through at least 2022, having earlier decided to retire the A330-300s permanently, Senior Vice-President (Flight Operations) Kimball Stone told staff in an internal memo reported by The Points Guy.
"Given the current depressed forecast for international demand and no opportunities to profitably use the fleet domestically, we have made the difficult decision to place all of our A330-200 aircraft in long-term storage," Stone said, adding that pilots will be re-trained to other types.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, American Airlines' A330-200s are 8.5 years old on average, which makes them younger than the -300s inherited from US Airways (Phoenix Sky Harbor). All fifteen units are owned by American Airlines and are currently parked in Roswell. Each is equipped with 247 passenger seats, including 20 in business class, 21 in premium economy, 54 in economy plus (Main Cabin Extra), and 152 in economy.
The airline based the A330-200s out of Charlotte International and Philadelphia International, using them mainly on transatlantic services. Ouf of Philadelphia, it also deployed the type on transcontinental services to Los Angeles International and San Francisco, while out of Charlotte it used them on Caribbean routes to San Juan Luis Muñoz Marin and Punta Cana, the ch-aviation schedules module shows.
Following the at least temporary retirement of both variants of the A330s and the B767-300(ER)s, the carrier's widebody fleet will encompass forty-seven B777-200(ER)s, twenty B777-300(ER)s, twenty-two B787-8s, and twenty-two B787-9s.
