American’s Airbus A330s See New Life After Six Years In The Graveyard

When the pandemic rolled around in 2020, American Airlines opted to relegate more than 150 of its older aircraft to barren desert in Roswell, New Mexico.

Once the aircraft left American’s fleet, they were parked up at the Roswell International Air Center for long term storage. Besides older versions of aircraft types still in the fleet, they retired all their Boeing 757s and 767s, Embraer 190s, Airbus A330s and Bombardier CRJ200s.

Let’s talk about their Airbus A330s specifically. At the time of retirement, American had 15 Airbus A330-200s and nine A330-300s in its fleet, all of which would have been brought over as a result of the merger with US Airways. While the -300s weren’t so lucky to see another day, the 15 -200s lived on hoping that someone would give them a second chance.

So said, so done. Six years later, eight of these parked A330-200s will find a new ‘lease’ on life as they will soon fly for Vietnamese leisure startup Sun PhuQuoc Airways. Founded in 2025, Sun PhuQuoc currently operates a handful of flights out of Phu Quoc Island to mainland Vietnam, as well as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The first four are expected to join the fleet this year, with the remaining four coming in 2027. Besides this, they operate two A320neos, two A321ceos and six A321neos, with six more on order, as well as 20 Boeing 787-9s also pending delivery. Even after spending six years in the desert, these A330s are relatively young, most of which were first delivered to US Airways between 2009 and 2014.

Sun PhuQuoc is undergoing rapid expansion since starting service less than a year ago, and it appears these A330s will be used to bridge the gap until enough 787s join their fleet starting in 2030. With these A330s (and later on 787s), they hope to further expand service into new markets including Europe, the Middle East, and Australia.

Vietnam’s tourism board has been on a massive push to promote Phu Quoc as the Phuket or Bali of Vietnam. The western coast line is littered with resorts and theme parks catering to all walks of life, with the island marketing its white-sand beaches, nature tours and various attractions. It’s also relatively cheaper to vacation here compared to some of the other heavily touristed destinations across other parts of Asia.

Vietnamese-conglomerate Sun Group (owner of Sun PhuQuoc Airways) is investing heavily in the airline to support the other arms of its business. The real estate group has developed a number of resorts and theme parks across the country, and they’re betting big on vertical integration by funneling in tourists via its own airline.

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