Malev, Spanair shutdowns add to parked aircraft

Today’s shutdown of Hungary’s Malev Airlines and the recent cessation by Spain’s Spanair adds to the number of parked aircraft and will make it just a little bit more challenging to remarket Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s.

As we noted in a recent post, India’s Kingfisher Airlines is teetering as well.

Malev operated six 737-600s, seven -700s and five -800s. It has operated four Bombardier Q400s and two Embraer 120s.

There is virtually no demand for the -600s and even the -700s have been falling out of favor as fuel prices climb. The EMB-120s have little demand.

Spanair’s failure puts 10 Airbus A320s and five A321s on the market. These are equipped with V2500 engines. As we wrote last month, A320s with V2500s are a bit more challenging to remarket than those equipped with CFM56s.

 

9 Comments on “Malev, Spanair shutdowns add to parked aircraft

  1. Perhaps the B-736s and B-73Gs might go to the VIP market? The B-738s, A-320/-321s may have to wait a while for new homes, unless someone wants them for freighter conversions via P2F.

    • Hi KC
      I have just read a report on flightgloble obout another problem for the 787s
      ‘Boeing 787s fuselage composite delamination’ by Jon Ostrwer

      • Yes, I have read that too, and followed it on a.net. It seems Boeing and the FAA found out about it about 2 weeks ago, and they already have a fix in place. So far, they have found 3 airplanes (that were already parked at Boeing and awaiting completion), but the entire fleet is/was going to be inspected. The delam problem is in the tail section for the longitudial beams to skin. It does not seem a big deal right now and someone on a.net said it is equil to the cracks found in the wings of some A-380s. In other words it is not a big safety problem right now.

  2. KC135TopBoom :
    Perhaps the B-736s and B-73Gs might go to the VIP market? The B-738s, A-320/-321s may have to wait a while for new homes, unless someone wants them for freighter conversions via P2F.

    As far as I’m aware, there is no 737NG BCF programme in place yet, and I know that there definitely isn’t one for the A32S series.
    Also, those planes aren’t all that old. Given that Malev’s 737NGs are all less than 10 years old – most even below 9 – I don’t see them sitting idle for too long (notwithstanding legal issues), to be honest.
    Regarding the -600 I agree that it will be the toughest to place. It does seem like a good fit for VIP – but all six -600s (not to mention the seven -700s as well) going VIP I somehow don’t see happening. Not least because they’re all owned by ILFC, and I don’t see ILFC reconfiguring them for VIP use, i.e. I would expect ILFC to sell them before any such reconfig happens.

    Regarding Spanair’s planes – they’re slightly older (A320 between 6.5 and 12 years, A321 between 9 and 11.5), but I still don’t think they’ll sit long, despite the IAE engines. They may command a lower price than CFM-powered ones – then again, it’s not like IAE is a totally marginal player in powering A32S, and at least Lufthansa made a very conscious decision to use the V2500 on their A321s, while using CFM on their A319 and A320.

    As freighters have come up a bit in the comments here, I venture a guess regarding when P2F conversions for A32S and 737NG are going to happen.
    They’ll both happen within about a year of each other, and I’d expect the first programme to be launched by the end of 2015, early 2016 at the most. No idea whether Airbus or Boeing will be first – but I think that the A321 and 737-800 will be the first variants from their respective model series to go freighter.

    • You could be right, afromme. But there is a freighter conversion program in place for B-737CLASSICs. There are several B-733CFs and B-734CFs flying smaller freight missions around the world. It would be hard to begin one with the B-737NG series.

  3. KC135TopBoom :
    You could be right, afromme. But there is a freighter conversion program in place for B-737CLASSICs. There are several B-733CFs and B-734CFs flying smaller freight missions around the world. It would be hard to begin one with the B-737NG series.

    I know about the 737Classic freighters, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be any problem (from a technical perspectice) to start a conversion programme for the NG as well. I don’t see that happening right now, though. The first Classic conversions didn’t happen until 2002/03 I believe, some six years after the EIS of the NG – and they’re still not all that common, especially considering how many Classic 737s there are. I’d expect a good few more of the Classics to be converted before NG conversions start.

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