Uganda Airlines receives its first Airbus A330neo. PHOTO | COURTESY
Uganda Airlines has become the first African operator of the Airbus A330-800neo, the smaller of the revamped A330 model, after taking delivery of the aircraft in Toulouse on Monday.
Certificates of title for the first of two -800neos on order were exchanged between Airbus and Uganda in Toulouse.
The aircraft operating as flight UR404 then departed Toulouse Blagnac Airport at 3am East African time on Tuesday, landing in Entebbe at 11am to a reception led by President Yoweri Museveni.
Uganda Airlines, which expects a second delivery in January 2021, plans to use the aircraft to open routes to London, Dubai and Guangzhou. London has been tentatively earmarked for the first intercontinental flight but negotiations continue over landing rights at Heathrow.
The year-old Ugandan flag carrier is the second operator of the airplane make globally, after Kuwait Airways which took delivery of two of the eight -800s it has on order on October 29.
Other African operators of the -800s larger sibling, the A330-900neo, are Air Senegal which took the first delivery in March 2019, followed by Air Mauritius a month later.
Although it is a very capable aircraft with a range of 15,000km, the -800 has a thin order book of just 14 because the big network operators have traded range in favour of the higher capacity of the -900neo.
Airbus is looking at the replacement market for the significant fleet of nearly 800 baseline A330-200s and Boeing 767s, which the 800 is designed to succeed, to boost sales in the coming years.
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