First Airbus A321neo for Transavia marks new era for Air France-KLM

Almost two years to the day since announcing the Memorandum of Understanding, Dutch leisure airline Transavia has taken delivery of its first Airbus A321neo on Tuesday. Actually, it is the first of at least 100 A320neo family aircraft for Air France-KLM, and as such the delivery was hailed as a special moment in the history of the airline group. While the handover ceremony at the Airbus factory in Hamburg was rather straightforward, Transavia and KLM top management, staff, guests, and media welcomed the aircraft in the Transavia hangar at Amsterdam Schiphol with a special ceremony. That was almost an hour after the aircraft had landed, as she did a special tour with escort around Schiphol in the pouring rain. The arrival of the first A321neo, registered PH-YHZ, marks the start of a new chapter for the Dutch airline as well as for its sister Transavia France, which will get its first A320neo in January. Together with KLM, the two Transavia’s announced on December 16, 2021, that they had selected the Airbus A320neo family for the replacement of their medium-haul fleets with an order for 100 aircraft plus 60 purchase rights. KLM will get its first A321neo's by mid-2024. All three airlines have been loyal operators of the Boeing 737 family for years, with Dutch Transavia taking delivery of the first 737 50 years ago, so this ‘deflection’ to Airbus has hurt Boeing. Especially as the MAX 10 seemed the favored option in early 2019. But that was just before the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy and the subsequent grounding. Since then, it seems that the MAX has never been a serious contender for the order again, especially when Airbus made a compelling offer. First aircraft is leased from ALC Dutch Transavia has a firm order for 27 Airbus aircraft plus 15 options, plus seven aircraft on lease from Air Lease Corporation (ALC). This includes this first aircraft, which continues the 48-year relationship between the airline and the lessor. Contractual delivery of the aircraft was on December 15. Another three from ALC will join before the summer, together with three owned aircraft. Next summer, the airline will have seven A321neo’s in service out of Schiphol. A year ago, CEO Marcel de Nooijer said that Transavia planned to have a fleet of 60 percent A321neo’s with 232 seats and 40 percent A320neo’s with 186 seats. This could be subject to change, depending on the ongoing discussion and hence uncertainty about the capacity cap and the number of available slots at Amsterdam Schiphol. It could opt to upgauge and order more A321neo’s if the capacity reduction would continue. “No decision has been made about this. Right now, the idea is still to have a 60/40 percent split, but we have time to evaluate and change this. We keep a close eye on all developments around Schiphol and our other bases to see if we must amend the fleet composition. It could be that we take more A321s,” De Nooijer told AirInsight today. The first Transavia Airbus A321neo arrived at Schiphol in the pouring rain. (Richard Schuurman) “The discussion around Schiphol changes almost by the day. That makes it very difficult for an airline to act. We need clarity and stability of politics, but I see that this is lacking. But I am confident that the proposal that KLM group together with Transavia has filed under the Balanced Approach procedure, the cleaner, quieter, economical plan, is the right one. This will allow us through fleet renewal and other operational measures to meet the targets set for noise reduction without sacrificing our business model. We need those to continue to innovate and we all have an interest in getting stability in the relationship with our neighbors.” “The introduction of this new aircraft helps us to make a good first step. We have existed for 58 years to keep flying affordable for Dutch customers. With this beautiful new aircraft, we give this a new impetus. We reduce fuel burn and carbon dioxide emissions by at least 15 percent.” Lower fuel costs and cheaper maintenance costs will partly contribute to the target for both Transavia and Transavia France to improve their EBIT by €400 million in 2028, as set out in the medium-term strategy that was announced by Air France-KLM on its Investor Day last Thursday. “But you have to do more to achieve this, so we will have to think continuously about our product proposition, about the most optimal network, what can we do better. We are constantly working on that, but the fleet renewal is significantly helping us with that,” said Marcel de Nooijer. Flaps mishap The first aircraft was supposed to have been delivered around mid-2023, but this slipped to September and then to December 7. It then suffered a mishap at the Airbus factory in Hamburg, when a torch light got stuck within the flaps, which subsequently needed repairs. The aircraft will enter service on January 5 to Pisa. Wouter van Wersch, Executive Vice President of Europe Region & Sales of Airbus until January, said that delivering a heads-of-version aircraft in the very busy December period is certainly not ideal, but he is happy that Airbus Hamburg managed to complete the job. He hailed December 19, 2023, as a historic day for Airbus and Air France-KLM. The A321neo will mark a significant improvement in fuel efficiency and has a noise footprint that is 50 percent smaller than that of previous-generation aircraft like the 737s. “After 58 years in business, Transavia is well-positioned to enter the next journey in its history. And it marks the start of a long relationship with Airbus that will offer a lot of opportunities.” The A321neo in Transavia's single-class configuration has 232 seats. (Richard Schuurman) On board, the first cabin crew and pilots that flew the aircraft to Schiphol showed visitors around. Compared to the 737s they replace, the Airspace cabin is more spacious and offers more legroom and room around the shoulders. The luggage bins are also much bigger. Transavia has selected special compartments for the first-aid kits that are positioned in the ceiling above the aisle in three locations at the the front, center, and aft cabin. Currently, 27 Captains and instructor pilots have been trained to fly the Airbus. One of them acknowledged that it took a mind reset to transition from the Boeing to the Airbus with its more advanced, fly-by-wire control system. But now that he has completed training and flown the actual aircraft, the Captain never looks back and is very pleased with what the A321neo has to offer. All seats have USB chargers, but Transavia doesn’t offer inflight entertainment. Not yet, said one of the cabin crew, who explained that the airline is evaluating various systems that could be introduced for use with personal devices. Transavia France Transavia France will take delivery of its first A320neo in early January. The aircraft has been built in Toulouse and did its first flight on December 15, but the French carrier confirms that the delivery is planned for the new year. Like its Dutch sister airline, Transavia France is operating a Boeing 737 fleet. It did operate four leased Airbus A320ceo’s between mid-2014 and April 2015 in full Transavia livery. Dutch Transavia operated an A300B2 on lease from Airbus between May 1976 and January 1977 to try out the aircraft. It was deemed too big for the airline that was still operating Boeing 737s, Caravelles, and 707s back then and an order for one was canceled. From April 1998 to February 1999, it had an A310 on charter. First-aid kits are positioned in the ceiling in three positions on the Transavia A321neo. This way, the kits don't use up luggage space. (Richard Schuurman) The A321neo party marked a happy end to what has been a very difficult and tumultuous 2023 for Transavia. The airline has gone into the year with the idea of forgetting 2022, the year when Schiphol was severely understaffed and airlines had to reduce capacity. Transavia has leased five 737-800s from ALC that the lessor had repossessed from Rumanian carrier Blue Air, thinking it had sufficient capacity for the 2023 summer season. However the formalities to prepare the leased aircraft for service took much longer than planned. Combined with maintenance delays of its own aircraft and all kinds of setbacks, Transavia was forced to cancel hundreds of flights between April and September. That bad memory seemed forgotten when the band played and everyone looked in admiration to the first A321neo that was centerstage in the hangar this afternoon.

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