China’s Hainan Airlines has just added the Airbus A330-900neo to its fleet. We had a clue that this was going to happen, though oddly there was no official announcement, and these deliveries are happening without much fanfare.
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Hainan Airlines takes delivery of Airbus A330-900neo
Hainan Airlines has just taken delivery of its first brand new Airbus A330-900neo. The plane has the registration code B-32MU, and on October 31, 2025, it flew from Toulouse (TLS) to Haikou (HAK). This A330neo reportedly has 301 seats, including 24 business class seats and 277 economy class seats. However, I haven’t yet seen any details of what the cabin actually looks like.
While the airline had the typical Airbus delivery ceremony, there wasn’t even so much as an Airbus press release about this, which is quite unusual. We don’t officially know how many more of these A330neos the airline has on order, and when they’ll be delivered.
As you can see, I mentioned that this order was sort of a surprise. The reason I say that is because in March 2024, Hainan Airlines’ parent company made a regulatory filing, disclosing that it had spent around $24 million with Safran to purchase galley equipment for A330-900neos. Obviously that was a bit unusual on the surface, since we had no reason to believe the airline had those planes on order.
The best theory is that in June 2023, aircraft leasing firm Avolon signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to order 20 Airbus A330-900neo aircraft. The end customer for those planes wasn’t disclosed, but keep in mind that Avolon is majority owned by an indirect subsidiary of Bohai Leasing, and HNA Group (also the parent company of Hainan Airlines) owns a large stake in Bohai Leasing.
So it seems likely that Hainan is taking delivery of these 20 A330-900neos, but that’s purely speculation.
How the A330-900neo fits into Hainan Airlines’ fleet
Hainan Airlines has had major financial issues in recent years, largely due to problems with parent company HNA Group. However, the situation has stabilized in recent times.
For context, Hainan Airlines has a fleet of roughly 220 aircraft, comprised of Airbus A320s, Airbus A330s, Boeing 737s, and Boeing 787s. For some time, the airline flew Airbus A350s, but most of those have been dumped, and are now flying for other airlines (including Fiji Airways and ITA Airways).
Hainan Airlines is currently flying 28 Airbus A330s, comprised of six A330-200s and 22 A330-300s. The planes are an average of around 11 years old, so they’re not particularly old, though some airlines do like to refresh their fleets every so often.
Hainan uses its A330s for just about all kinds of routes — the planes fly everything from short haul services within China, to long haul services. The A330-900neo of course offers improved economics over previous generation A330s, with lower fuel burn and more range, plus slightly higher capacity.
Bottom line
Hainan Airlines has just taken delivery of its first Airbus A330-900neo, and that’s all we know as of now. We had reason to believe this was happening, given that the airline disclosed a transaction to buy A330-900neo galley equipment. So it seems likely that the airline will take delivery of 20 of these aircraft in the coming years, but that’s not officially confirmed.
This is one of the most unusual aircraft deliveries we’ve seen in a long time, and one certainly wonders why Hainan is seemingly trying to keep this secret, or something.
What do you make of Hainan Airlines adding the Airbus A330-900neo to its fleet? And what do you make of the lack of disclosure about this?
I’ve always wondered why Mainland Chinese airlines largely didn’t care for the A330neo, given how gung-ho they’ve been about the A330ceo, with a significant portion of the global A330ceo fleet operating in China. What’s even more mysterious is that HU and other Mainland airlines haven’t been very visible (in terms of global recognition) since the pandemic, with Starlux and co. from across the strait taking their place. No wonder the celebration seems muted, as HU...
I’ve always wondered why Mainland Chinese airlines largely didn’t care for the A330neo, given how gung-ho they’ve been about the A330ceo, with a significant portion of the global A330ceo fleet operating in China. What’s even more mysterious is that HU and other Mainland airlines haven’t been very visible (in terms of global recognition) since the pandemic, with Starlux and co. from across the strait taking their place. No wonder the celebration seems muted, as HU and its ilk probably don’t care for a global audience any more:
Was covered heavily on Chinese social media. Quite a nice looking cabin with an especially interesting economy class.
Photos of the cabin floating around LinkedIn. Business same seat as Condor A330neo. Economy is a new seat type with winged headrests at each row.
" disclosing that it had spent around $24 million with Safran to purchase galley equipment for A330-900neos. " ".....ordered 20 xA330-900s"
Over $1 mil per plane just for galley equipment? Damn, this industry is EXPENSIVE!!
Maybe it's HNA doing a 777 Partners trick.
HNA Group does not own Hainan anymore…
Lack of fanfare. Yup.
They are already flying A330s. Adding the 900 may electrify OMAAT readers, but some perspective it helpful - the other 99% of the world want to know about new locations. They want to know if there is a flat bed seat, but are fairly ambivalent as to the manufacturer and even to whether the configuration is herringbone 1-2-1 or 2-2-2 when they set out to purchase (they may care more once...
Lack of fanfare. Yup.
They are already flying A330s. Adding the 900 may electrify OMAAT readers, but some perspective it helpful - the other 99% of the world want to know about new locations. They want to know if there is a flat bed seat, but are fairly ambivalent as to the manufacturer and even to whether the configuration is herringbone 1-2-1 or 2-2-2 when they set out to purchase (they may care more once on board).
Hainan may not have seen the addition as newsworthy as some.
@ jfhscott -- For what it's worth, this is the first A330ceo operator I can think of that "upgraded" to the A330neo where there wasn't even an Airbus press release. At a minimum, you'd think Airbus would want the press of showing off the popularity of its new plane, so I do find this to be very unusual.
@Ben Schlappig
The cabin configuration is exactly what Garuda Indonesia have on their NEO (24 in business, 277 in economy). What are the odds that this plane was supposed to go to them instead
Is this how Xi plans to get boots on the ground in Taiwan?
“HNA Group (also the parent company of Hainan Airlines)” little bit a of a correction as this is not the case anymore so it would be “former”, the HNA Group proper went bankrupt and went into government administration who divested various core entities to different owners which included the airline business. The current Hainan Airlines is owned Fangda Group through its subsidiary HNA Aviation which it acquired during the restructuring of HNA Group