Airbus Updates No.3021

 Qatar Airways Has Retired All Of Its Airbus A330 Freighters

As of yesterday, Qatar Airways’ cargo division is no longer operating the Airbus A330 freighter. Its remaining four A330-200Fs were taken out of service in light of the recent triple-Boeing 777F delivery, which took place at the start of the month.

One of the airlines’ A330 freighters had already been sold to Wizz Air, which is operating it on behalf of the Hungarian government. Photo: Airbus

The outgoing Airbus freighters

STAT Trade Times, who interviewed Qatar Airways Chief Officer Cargo, Guillaume Halleux,  confirmed the departure of the freighters. As part of the interview, Halleux said the following:

“We had five A330 freighters. We sold one of them in August last year. And the remaining were planned to exit. Therefore, as on January 31, they will be out of our fleet.”

Qatar Airways Cargo had actually planned to retire its A330 freighters earlier. Photo: Laurent Errera via Wikimedia Commons 

The final four Airbus freighters were A330-200s registered as A7-AFG, AFH, AFI, and AFJ. These freighters are relatively young as they range between just five and six years of age.

The delayed phase-out

Qatar Airways had actually planned to remove its A330 freighters earlier than January 2021. In fact, November 2020 was the original phase-out time. However, this had been pushed back due to delays in Boeing’s delivery of new 777 freighters.

The airline has been phasing out these jets, with three leaving in 2019, leaving the company with five in 2020. The first of these five was to be removed in April 2020. However, with the onset of the global health crisis, this was moved back to July-August.

Interestingly, the sale of the one A330 last summer was to Hungarian budget airline Wizz Air. According to The Load Star, the Hungarian government had apparently been facing criticism for being unable to procure air freight capacity during the PPE peak. Its response was to purchase an A330-200F from Qatar Airways. Wizz Air is the official operator of the jet, but the aircraft’s main work is on behalf of the Hungarian government.