American Airlines flies more aircraft than almost anyone on Earth, yet it has quietly backed itself into a corner over the ocean. Its long-haul order book has dwindled to just 19 jets. Now the airline is preparing to fix that — and the most interesting part of the story is not that it is buying widebodies, but that it might buy them from Airbus.

That would be a genuine surprise. American is a Boeing house. It already operates 70 Dreamliners. The obvious move is to order more. But a persistent rumour out of the fleet-planning world suggests the carrier is seriously weighing the Airbus A330-900neo instead — a jet it once flew, retired in a hurry, and may now be circling back to.

How American fell behind over the ocean

Among the big three US carriers, American has the weakest long-haul network once you set aside Latin America. A string of fleet decisions made that worse: the early retirement of its Boeing 757s, 767s and — crucially — its Airbus A330s, many of which were still relatively young. The result is a widebody order book of just 19 more 787-9s, against Delta’s 78 and United’s eye-watering 135.

Widebodies are ordered years in advance. Falling this far behind is not the kind of gap you close in a single season, which is exactly why a new order now looks inevitable.

The spark for the latest round of speculation was the aviation insider JonNYC, who hinted that American’s next widebody could come from either planemaker — not the foregone Boeing conclusion most observers assumed.

Why the A330neo suddenly makes sense

Logic says American should simply grow its 787 fleet, maybe adding the stretched 787-10 with its excellent per-seat economics. The catch is price and patience: the Dreamliner is expensive and the queue is long. When Delta ordered the 787-10 recently, its first delivery slipped to 2031.

The A330neo flips those drawbacks. It is cheaper, a touch smaller — which suits American executives’ well-documented allergy to very large long-haul jets — and it can be delivered with far less lead time. American even has a pool of pilots who were once qualified on the A330.

A very expensive lesson

There is a sting in the tail. American retired its entire ex-US Airways A330 fleet at the start of the pandemic, then chose not to bring the jets back when demand returned. Those aircraft are now being acquired by Vietnam’s Sun PhuQuoc Airways. If American does order the A330neo, it will be paying to re-introduce a type it already owned and walked away from.

Nothing is signed yet. The smart money still splits between a fresh batch of 787s and a wild-card Airbus deal. But for an airline that prides itself on flying the youngest fleet of the big three, the most telling decision may be admitting that the plane it needs is the one it let go.

Sources: One Mile at a Time (Ben Schlappig), JonNYC via X, Aviation A2Z.