Earlier this week, it was revealed that Air France will receive another three Airbus A350-900 aircraft from Air Lease Corporation.
According to the leasing giant, the French carrier will receive these units in the second quarter of next year.
Udvar-Hazy: Important For Air France’s Modernization…
Commenting on the placement of the three jets was Steven Udvar-Hazy, the Executive Chairman of Air Lease Corporation:
“This strategic lease placement of three new A350-900s is another important step in the long-haul fleet modernization of Air France”.
“The Air France-KLM Group is our largest European airline leasing customer, encompassing not only Air France and KLM, but also includes Transavia Netherlands and Transavia France.”
“ALC also has nine new Airbus A321neo aircraft delivering to the Group between late 2023 and 2026, and five Boeing 737s delivering to Transavia during the first half of this year, all on long-term leases.”
Air France & The Airbus A350…
At the time of writing, Air France currently has a fleet of 20 Airbus A350-900 aircraft, with the registrations as per Planespotters.net as follows:
- F-HTYA
- F-HTYB
- F-HTYC
- F-HTYD
- F-HTYE
- F-HTYF
- F-HTYG
- F-HTYH
- F-HTYI
- F-HTYJ
- F-HTYK
- F-HTYL
- F-HTYM
- F-HTYN
- F-HTYO
- F-HTYP
- F-HTYQ
- F-HTYR
- F-HTYS
In total, Air France is set to receive another 18 aircraft, bringing the total orderbook to 38 on the passenger variant.
All 20 A350-900s currently sit 34 in Business, 24 in Premium Economy, and 266 in Economy.
Getting Closer to Pre-Pandemic Levels…
The delivery of new aircraft enables Air France to get closer to pre-pandemic levels from the perspective of the movement.
For February 26-March 5, the French carrier handled 767 movements based on a seven-day rolling average provided by RadarBox.com.
This represents an increase of 13.29% compared to the same period last year but is still short of pre-pandemic levels by 55 movements.
Below is the previous four weeks’ worth of data from Air France:
| Date | 2019 Numbers | 2022 Numbers | 2023 Numbers | Percentage Difference (2023 vs. 2022) |
| January 29-February 5 | 790 movements | 573 movements | 749 movements | +30.72% |
| February 5-12 | 813 movements | 606 movements | 741 movements | +22.28% |
| February 12-19 | 811 movements | 647 movements | 745 movements | +15.15% |
| February 19-26 | 813 movements | 669 movements | 767 movements | +14.65% |
What we can see from the data is that Air France’s numbers are growing, with this expected to continue into 2024 as more aircraft get delivered.
Overall…
It remains clear that Air France is pressing ahead with its post-COVID recovery efforts by adding more airplanes and, subsequently, more flights.
Upon completion of the backlog of aircraft delivered to the carrier, we should expect to see the network grow substantially.
But for now, all eyes are on the French carrier to see how much further it can take its network and whether we could see some more orders going into the future.
