American Airlines retires A330-200s, defers B737 MAX

American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) has decided to permanently retire all of its remaining A330-200s, the last of its widebody Airbus aircraft.

"As we have spoken about in the past, our long-held strategy has been to drive efficiencies through the simplification of our fleet. With the permanent retirement of our A330-200 fleet announced this morning, we now have only four aircraft types [families] in our mainline fleet: the B737, the A320, the B787, and the B777," Chief Financial Officer Derek Kerr said during an earnings call.

Before the announcement, American Airlines had fifteen A330-200s in its fleet. The aircraft are 8.9 years old on average and are all owned by the airline. They were all retired from active service between mid-February and April 4, 2020, and have since been stored at Roswell airport. According to Flightradar24 ADS-B data, American's last A330-200 revenue flight was AA1869 from Philadelphia Int'l to Charlotte Int'l, operated on April 4, 2020, with N280AY (msn 1022).

American Airlines recorded a USD709 million non-cash write-down during the third quarter of 2020 as a result of the A330-200s' retirement.

The carrier has previously announced the retirement of all of its B757, B767, E190, A330-300, and CRJ200 aircraft, amounting to more than 150 units phased-out during 2020. According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, the carrier's remaining mainline fleet comprises 133 A319-100s, forty-eight A320-200s, 218 A321-200s, twenty-three A321-200NXs, 304 B737-800s, forty-seven B777-200(ER)s, twenty B777-300(ER)s, twenty-three B787-8s, and twenty-two B787-9s.

American Airlines also has twenty-four grounded B737-8s and a further 76 of the type on order from Boeing. It said that the deliveries of the forthcoming units could be deferred.

"We have reached an agreement with Boeing to secure deferral rights on eight of our 2021 MAX deliveries and all 10 of our MAX deliveries in 2022. If the deferral rates are ultimately exercised, these aircraft can be deferred to the second half of 2023 through the first quarter of 2024. To avoid exercising these deferral rates, we would need to see substantial improvement in the demand environment," Kerr said.

The airline still has ten B737 MAX 8s scheduled to deliver in 2021, excluding those subject to potential deferrals.

"We retain inexpensive optionality in our total fleet count as we have 51 aircraft with lease expirations through the end of 2022. In addition, we have more than 200 older owned mainline and regional aircraft that could be efficiently part should demand conditions deteriorate," Kerr added.

American Airlines also said that it had amended its loan agreement with the US Treasury, potentially increasing the amount of borrowing available to it from USD5.5 billion to USD7.5 billion. It underlined that so far, it has only drawn USD550 million under the facility.

ch aviation