Virgin Atlantic brought an Airbus A330neo to Farnborough Airshow where it signed on for seven more of the widebody.
As the 2024 edition of the Farnborough Airshow comes to a close, this week’s Flight Friday looks at the widebody passenger flight hours of the operators who ordered widebody aircraft during the show.
Although Qatar Airways did not announce a new order per se, they were revealed as the operator who had ordered 20 Boeing 777-9s back in March 2024—which was previously listed as “undisclosed” on Boeing’s backlog. Qatar has the highest aggregated widebody hours of all the operators considered in this week’s report; its June 2024 flight hours are more than 14% greater than June 2019. With Qatar ordering the 777-9, it is looking to begin fleet replacement toward the end of the decade as some of its existing widebody passenger aircraft age. Qatar will use these 777-9s to replace its Airbus A380s, A330s and some of its early 777s.
Japan Airlines (JAL) has the second-highest aggregated monthly flight hours. JAL placed an order for 20 A350s and 10 787-9s, plus 10 options, at Farnborough. This was also a firming up of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed in March. JAL in June 2024 is almost back to June 2019 levels, as the carrier currently sits at 95% of those flight-hour levels. Both of JAL’s current in-service fleets of 767s and 777s, which total 36 aircraft, have an average age of more than 17 years, and when these new aircraft are delivered, they will make natural replacements.
In one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry, Virgin Atlantic placed an order for seven A330-900s. Given that Virgin showcased its latest A330-900 delivery at the show, the purchase was hardly a surprise. Instead, the question was: How many platforms was Virgin going to order? Virgin, in June 2024, has returned to the exact same aggregated flight hours when compared to June 2019. Virgin will be using this influx of new aircraft to replace its legacy A330s, and possibly even begin to remove the 787 from its fleet, as the average age of the Virgin 787 is approaching nine years.
VietJet placed an order for 20 A330-900s, again firming up a MOU from February 2024. However, in its case, VietJet is going to be using the aircraft exclusively for growth. Having only introduced the widebody into the fleet mix in late 2021, VietJet is a newcomer with its fleet of A330-300s.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.
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