China’s Hainan Airlines has just added the Airbus A330-900neo to its fleet. We had a clue that this was going to happen, though oddly there was no official announcement, and these deliveries are happening without much fanfare.
While the airline had the typical Airbus delivery ceremony, there wasn’t even so much as an Airbus press release about this, which is quite unusual. We don’t officially know how many more of these A330neos the airline has on order, and when they’ll be delivered.
As you can see, I mentioned that this order was sort of a surprise. The reason I say that is because in March 2024, Hainan Airlines’ parent company made a regulatory filing, disclosing that it had spent around $24 million with Safran to purchase galley equipment for A330-900neos. Obviously that was a bit unusual on the surface, since we had no reason to believe the airline had those planes on order.
The best theory is that in June 2023, aircraft leasing firm Avolon signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to order 20 Airbus A330-900neo aircraft. The end customer for those planes wasn’t disclosed, but keep in mind that Avolon is majority owned by an indirect subsidiary of Bohai Leasing, and HNA Group (also the parent company of Hainan Airlines) owns a large stake in Bohai Leasing.
So it seems likely that Hainan is taking delivery of these 20 A330-900neos, but that’s purely speculation.
How the A330-900neo fits into Hainan Airlines’ fleet
Hainan Airlines has had major financial issues in recent years, largely due to problems with parent company HNA Group. However, the situation has stabilized in recent times.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
