American Still Hasn’t Returned To Tel Aviv After 3 Years — But The A330s It Retired Too Soon Are About To

American Airlines retired its Airbus A330s during the pandemic, along with their Boeing 757s and 767s. They were left without enough planes capable of flying long haul. The planes had plenty of life left in them. We saw some 757s go to Northern Pacific, the startup that wanted to connect passengers to Asia over Anchorage before that idea got nixed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the end of U.S. airlines overflying Russia. We saw some 767s go to Amazon Air to deliver packages. And we saw some Airbus A330s go to Vietnam’s Sun PhuQuoc Airways. It expects four this year and four more by the end of April. American Airlines Airbus A330 aircraft parked in Pittsburgh at Start of Pandemic, Credit: American Airlines A couple of Airbus A330-200s have also gone to Israer. American hasn’t resumed flying to Tel Aviv since October 7th. It’s been three years and there is no firm plan to restart service. But it looks like ex-American aircraft are going to pick up the slack and fly between the U.S. and Israel, after all. American’s 15 A330-200s were only about ten years old when they stopped flying, had recently received a premium economy cabin refresh, and still had plenty of cycles left. Two of those airplanes now belong to Israir. 4X-BAK, formerly American and US Airways N284AY, manufacturer serial number 1095 4X-BAL, formerly American and US Airways N285AY, manufacturer serial number 1100 One is already flying scheduled short haul trips for crew familiarization, and the airline wants to use them for Tel Aviv – New York service. The plane may get back to American’s old market before American does. Indeed, American used to fly A330s from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv dating back to US Airways time. The planes went into storage in 2020, eventually passed to aircraft trader Jetran, and were returned to service. 4X-BAK flew from Tucson to Tel Aviv on June 18–19 and is now operating Israir flights to destinations such as Varna. 4X-BAL was ferried from Tucson to Larnaca, where Israir’s Cyprus-based Bird Aviation maintenance operation is supporting the widebody program. American Airlines Airbus A330-200, Credit: Anna Zvereva/Wikimedia Commons These planes are still in American’s 247-seat configuration: 20 reverse-herringbone business class seats with direct aisle access 21 premium economy seats 206 economy seats in 2-4-2 layout Israer disclosed a purchase price of $74 million, though including return to service costs the planes will run over $80 million. Israeli travel company Issta advanced Israir $35 million and in exchange gets 40 economy seats on every commercial flight operated by either A330 for ten years. That’s nearly 20% of the economy cabin committed to a single tour operating before selling a single seat. The U.S. Department of Transportation granted Israir foreign air carrier authority last summer. It still needs FAA Part 129 authority for its aircraft and U.S. service as well as TSA approval of the airline’s foreign carrier security program (although the status of that is unlikely to be disclosed so could now have been secured). Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority approved Israir’s A330 operation on July 29, and extended that authorization to North American flying, so FAA clearance should come next. Israir has successively said they’d serve New York by last Passover, by June, by the third quarter and by early August. None of those marks have been it. As of August 11, it has missed the first three formulations and has not announced a firm date. There is an obvious Mamdani-era joke about Israir buying American’s old airplanes to give New York Jews an evacuation plan. But New York – Tel Aviv is one of the world’s largest concentrated ‘visiting friends and relatives’ (“VFR”) markets. It combines a large Jewish diaspora, religious pilgrimages, business and technology travel, government travel and tourism. Until now, Israir’s own fleet and operating experience centered on Airbus A320 narrowbodies. Credit: Oyoyoy/Wikimedia Commons Even with Mideast uncertainty, the Israel Airports Authority reports 1.2 million passengers between New York (including Newark) and Tel Aviv in 2025. Six weekly 247-seat Israir flights would provide 1,482 one-way seats per week or one-eighth the 2025 nonstop market and fares on the route have remained persistently high amidst service disruptions. Delta’s currenty plan is to resume flights September 6. United returns September 8 El Al and Arkia have been serving New York. The rest of flying has generally been through Europe, though even that’s been disrupted. KLM plans to return to Tel Aviv August 25, initially using a Larnaca technical stop so that crews don’t overnight in Israel. I personally wouldn’t choose Israir on the route, because a nearly-daily schedule would consume both their planes so a single significant maintenance event could produce several days of cancellations. At some level I buy that American should have retired its nine A330-300s which were older and a small subfleet. Its 757s and 767s were aging and maintenance-intensive, but retiring these left them without cheap lift to experiment with new routes and betting entirely on Boeing having no problems with manufacturing and safety. The 15 A330-200s, though, were just silly to dispose of. They were young, owned aircraft with useful range and had just received a premium economy investment. And on top of the other retirements, losing these planes meant giving up 40% of its long haul-capable fleet. That meant it lacked planes for the transatlantic recovery after Covid. Now they’re considering another widebody order, and the Airbus A330 is a plausible candidate! They wouldn’t even wind up with ‘fleet simplification’ out of it in that case. American concluded these A330s had no future. It will be great to see some of them back in the sky flying long haul. (HT: Enilria) Topics on this page Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary » More articles by Gary Leff »