Chinese airline Hainan Airlines is offering its Airbus A350s for sale. It is inviting interested parties to a tender to sell the aircraft, which are owned by Hainan itself, no later than December 31. Four more A350s that are under operating lease are also available. Hainan Airlines wants to dispose of six A350s through tender. In a press statement that was issued on April 2, Hainan says it wants to dispose of the aircraft “in order to further optimize the fleet structure.” Following the serious financial problems of its parent HNA Group, Hainan Airlines and other subsidiaries like Hong Kong Airlines drastically reduced their fleets. Hainan Airlines Group currently has an active fleet of 370 aircraft, with another 269 parked. Hainan Airlines used to operate seven A350-900s, including two previously leased by Avolon to Latam that are with South African Airlines since October 2019. Five other A350s joined Hainan between July and December 2019, with three of them going straight into storage at Tarbes near the Airbus factory in Toulouse. Two were sourced from Avolon and operated between December 2019 and mid-January 2020, when the Covid-crisis hit China. Aircraft have just eleven and twelve flights hours According to Hainan, the two A350-900s that are now offered in the tender, have been built in December 2018 and come with 33 First, 39 Business, and 262 Economy seats. They have only eleven and twelve flight hours under their wings. The document doesn’t disclose the MSN number, but the A350 production list doesn’t mention aircraft built for HNA Group in that month. There are three likely candidates: MSN246 and 251, both produced in October 2018 for Hong Kong Airlines and delivered to Hainan in September and July 2019 respectively, but going straight into storage in Tarbes. The third is MSN260, built in November 2018 for Hong Kong Airlines, delivered to Hainan in August 2019, and also stored in Tarbes. In addition, Hainan offers four A350-900s that are on operating lease. According to the tender, two have been built in January 2019 and two in January 2020. The two oldest aircraft come with the 275 tonnes Maximum Take-Off Weight and have flown more than 3.000 hours, the two newer ones with 280 tonnes MTOW less than ten hours. Again, there are no details in the document, but likely candidates that fit the profile are MSN226 (built July 2018 for LATAM Brazil, leased by Avolon to Hainan in January 2019, leased onward by SAA from November 2019-March 2020, now stored) and MSN245 (built October 2018 for LATAM Brazil, leased by Avolon to Hainan in January 2019, leased to SAA in November 2019 until April 2020 and now in storage again). Another could be MSN256, but that one was built in October 2018 and leased by ALAFCO for some sixteen months to Hong Kong Airlines. The aircraft is in storage at Alice Springs since last October and was supposed to join Hainan. Mind you that other A350s that were destined for Hong Kong Airlines and Hainan have recently been placed by ALAFCO and CIT Leasing with ITA Airways, as reported last week. Closing of the bidding ends already at midnight Beijing time on April 10. “We will give priority to the bidders who buy or lease multiple aircraft”, Hainan says. Disposing of the aircraft is another indication that HNA Group continues to restructure, despite earlier reports that this had been completed. Last September, Liaoning Fanga Group Industrial was chosen as HNA’s strategic investor, which took over the airline’s management. HNA Group said in January that it was expecting an RMB 4.5 to 6.2 billion net profit for 2021 after recording an RMB 6.4 billion loss in 2020.
