The Airbus A330 - The Workhorse of the Region

Before we start going into detail and before showing you the airlines of the Middle East, I want to give you a short overview on the fleet numbers of the real workhorse of the region: The Airbus A330. At first it was only a two engine version of the Airbus A340 and it was expected that the four engined A340 would be the big seller but it turned out different. Roughly 60 % of all planes of the 330/340 family so far are A330s. And there are only a few A340s still to be built (approximately 20 aircraft) but several hundred A330s are still on order by the airlines worldwide. The aircraft is currently offered in two passenger versions (there is also a military tanker variant and a soon to be built freighter model), the Airbus A330-300 (length circa 63.5 m) and the shortened longer range version Airbus A330-200 (length circa 59m). Right from the start this aircraft was very popular with the airlines of the Middle East, due to its unrivalled economics and also because it is quite common to fly big aircraft around in the region. It seems to be a prestige thing to generally have bigger aircraft even for short hops than elsewhere.

As of July 2009 these are the numbers for this beautiful plane in the Mideast:

Emirates Airlines - 29 A330-200s plus a so far unconfirmed LOI for 30 new A330-300s

Etihad Airways - 16 A330-200s plus orders for 2 A330-200s, 3 A330-300s and 3 A330-200 Freighters

Gulf Air - 10 A330-200s plus orders for 20 A330-300s

Qatar Airways - 16 A330-200s and 13 A330s-300s

Saudi Arabian Airlines - 2 A330-200s (leased from Turkish Atlasjet) plus orders for 8 A330-300s

Oman Air - 2 A330-200s (leased from Indian Jet Airways) plus orders for 10 A330-200s and 4 A330-300s

MEA Middle East Airlines - 4 A330-200s