Aircalin as all airlines based and operating from overseas French territories have quite the peculiar fleet structure. The airline has to cater to both passengers looking to travel to closer destinations but also serve ULR flights to mainland France in Paris CDG. Therefore, a large portion of the fleet is made up of wide body aircraft such as the Airbus A330s and soon the A350s.
Aircalin To Operate Both the Airbus A350 and A330
Interestingly, for such an overall small operation, Aircalin will be joining the not so large group of airlines that operate both the Airbus A330neo and A350. It would be quite unusual for an airline of this size to operate both these very large planes if not taking into account the necessity of offering flights to Paris.
The reason Aircalin is looking to also onboard the A350 is that it is optimized more for longer flights and it has a higher capacity than the A330. The New Caledonia based airline will be setting these planes up with a 3-class configuration and in spite of that it will still accommodate up to 320 passengers. That is, as Airbus itself stated, 15% more than the smaller A330-900.
The Aircalin Airbus Deal – How Will The New A350s be Used?
As you might have already imagined and figured out this is not one of those massive mind-blowing orders. Small operation, hence small order. Aircalin is looking to take delivery of 2 Airbus A350-900 (that is the smaller variant of the A350). Although not big in number, this is a massive deal for the little pacific airline.
Aircalin has recently started flights to Paris with a stopover in Bangkok. Currently these flights are operated using the airline’s A330-900s. However, the A350 is a much better fit for this type of ULR service than the A330neo, both from a passenger and airline point of view. The A350 has better efficiency extremely long routes thanks to its advanced composite material fuselage, and wings.
In turn, the arrival of the A350s will free up the A330s allowing the airline to deploy them on other routes, possibly opening new routes and destinations.