Hi Fly is a Portuguese wet lease operator. That's to say that you've never actually booked a ticket with Hi Fly, but you may very well have flown on one of their planes. Often airlines have a need for extra planes, whether it's due to an aircraft requiring maintenance, due to high seasonal demand, or…
Continue reading: Hi Fly Modernizes Fleet With A330-900neo
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Why would you buy ten (expensive) new planes when you have no idea to whom and when you will be able to fill the seats? You have to admire Hifly, they seem to fly in the face of all airline business logic ( like buying a 2nd hand A380 that mostly doesn't fly anywhere ) yet somehow not going bust!
It might just be how they staged the bedding in the photo, but those seats look angled, not fully flat.
@Niko_jas HiFly has been in business for 14 years and has a fleet of I believe 12 widebodies, not including their a380. They probably will replace all 12 of those frames over time with the neos. Being in business so long, and being pretty successful at what they do, I'd believe they have done their due diligence and have a pretty good idea of how many people they carry in a given year. Companies like this aren't usually run by the seat of their pants (looking at you Air Italy!)
On HiFly's website, they also show another A330neo that is scheduled for delivery (9H-SZN) that will have business class in a 1-2-1 configuration, premium economy in a 2-3-2 configuration, and economy class in a 2-4-2 configuration. So they seem to be taking delivery of A330s in two different configurations, one more intended for low-cost airlines and another intended for legacy carriers.
Is there any other airlines which have economy in a 3-3-3 configuration on an A330?
@Aidan, unfortunately more and more. Air Asia, Cebu Pacific, AirTransat, XL airways the ones I know. It really is a terrible configuration. Hopefully when I flew Air Asia and XL airways, I had empty seats next to me.
@Aidan: A lot of LCC’s like Air Asia X, XL Airways France, Corsair, Thomas Cook UK or even Philippine Airlines has some of them.
I’ve never tried them but they look damn cramped. However as bad as 767’s in 2-4-2
Not only more seats in economy, but they've also ditched the middle storage units - so more people trying to squeeze more cabin luggage in less space. Avoid.
Sweet paint scheme on that NEO. Too bad so many mainline carriers around the world don't have a clue when it comes to nice schemes.
Air NZ subbed in a Hi-Fly A340 for grounded 787s and pax feedback was not good. If I understand it correctly, BusinessFirst pax did not like the lack of all-aisle access and Air NZ had to contact pax booked in Premium Economy and downgrade them with compensation as no such section existed on the Hi-Fly jet.
The wet lease deal included cabin crew with one Air NZ hand aboard and as much Kiwi soft product as could be accommodated. Not a rousing success.
Much fewer complaints about the Eva Air 777-300 that replaced the A340 and was even given a NZ registration number.
This order for brand new A339s, some with PE, suggests Hi-Fly listens to its lease customers. It’ll be interesting to see where these planes pop up.