Malaysia Airlines to lease six ex-Air Berlin A330s

Malaysia Airlines (MH, Kuala Lumpur Int'l) has announced it has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with AerCap for the lease of six A330-200s formerly in service with Air Berlin (AB, Berlin Tegel).

The carrier said in a statement the aircraft would deliver from February 2018 through to 2023 and would be used to replace six B737-800s that are coming off lease. As previously reported, Malaysia Airlines intends to start using more widebody aircraft on high demand flights to slot constrained markets around Asia including Mumbai Int'l, Delhi Int'l, Denpasar, and Perth Int'l.
The six aircraft will feature 287 seats in a two-class configuration. Of those, nineteen will be fully lie-flat Business Class seats.

Malaysia Airlines currently operates six A380-800s, fifteen A330-300s, and forty-eight B737-800s. According to CEO Peter Bellew, under the carrier's Fleet Strategy 2017-2022, the airline will shift focus towards widebody capacity. As such, it will reduce its total narrow-body fleet from the current forty-eight to forty-five by 2022, while at the same time increasing the wide-body fleet to thirty-five from twenty-one aircraft.

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