Aircraft Asset Assessment – The A330-900

Market Presence. The launch of the A330neo at the 2014 Farnborough Air Show reflected the new dilemma of the manufacturers in seeking to meet the needs of operators. The A350 and B787, while offering efficiency and considerable range, are relatively expensive and offer too much performance for some routes. There exist a myriad of routes of around the world that do not require the absolute payload/range capability of the A350 or the B787. Yet to achieve the efficiencies of the new aircraft in terms of fuel saving, use on longer sectors is necessary. Only with longer flights can the higher capital cost of new aircraft be mitigated when compared to the cost of existing equipment. With sustained traffic growth and new route structures, there exists considerable demand for mid sized widebodies that offer capacity rather than range. In view of the shorter sector lengths the ability to extract revenue from higher yielding business traffic is more limited this making it more of an imperative to use an aircraft that has lower capital cost. There exist a great many regional and intercontinental routes around the world that still require the capacity of the A330-200 and A330-300 but not the range or cost of the B787 or A350. There also exists the issue of Airbus competing directly with B787-8, something which was not possible with the A350. The lesser fuel consumption of the A330neo increases range even further.