Freight DHL purchases five A330-200 freighters from Etihad

DHL has received the first of five of Etihad Cargo’s A330-200 freighters which had been withdrawn from operations in January of this year. Etihad Cargo is remodelling its fleet into an all-Boeing fleet and with the closing down of the A330-200Fs is now operating a fleet of five Boeing 777-200F aircraft.

“The widebody freighters were withdrawn from service effective 1 January and have been placed into storage in Abu Dhabi Int’l and Teruel ever since,” said an Etihad spokesperson. Now the first aircraft was transferred to Leipzig from Abu Dhabi.

DHL stated that the purchase of these aircraft was part of the normal fleet replacement and capacity upgrade programme. The logistics company is one of the largest operators of Airbus freighters.

It has been reported that the five freighters will be operated by the DHL subsidiary EAT Leipzig based at Leipzig airport where DHL operates its logistics hub. DHL is also the launch operator for the A330-300 conversion programme by Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW) with the first delivery taken in December 2017. The carrier has another 7 of the first-ever A330-300 passenger-to-freighter (P2F) aircraft on order and options for another 10 of the A330-300P2Fs.