A Christmas Delivery? Air Greenland’s A330-800 Completes Customer Acceptance Flight

Air Greenland’s newest addition has undergone its customer acceptance flight and will likely be delivered before Christmas.

As the next-generation aircraft, the Airbus A330-800, has just finished its customer acceptance flight, it is possible that Air Greenland’s long-awaited Airbus A330-800 will arrive just in time for Christmas. The airline intends to put the widebody aircraft into service as quickly as possible so that it can take the place of their aging A330ceo.

Customer acceptance at an all-time high
The ordering airline is responsible for carrying out a customer acceptance flight. During this flight, the airline sends pilots and cabin crew members out on a test run to ensure that the aircraft is operating as it should. In addition to this, they make sure that the in-flight experience is exactly what the airline requested. These flights typically take place at the production facility and take place before the aircraft is delivered to the customer. In this particular instance, Air Greenland dispatched pilots and cabin crew members to the manufacturing facility of Airbus located at the Toulouse–Blagnac Airport in France.

The brand new aircraft, which was given the registration number F-WWCR, successfully completed its fourth test flight. The flight was a local flight that departed from TLS and returned there without making a stop at any other airport. It lasted slightly longer than two hours. Since it was first put into production, the airplane has been subjected to exhaustive tests by the manufacturer. On October 25th, it made its maiden voyage after passing all of these tests successfully. After remaining inactive for close to a month, the aircraft finally took part in its second and third test flights on November 17th and 19th, respectively. At this point, Airbus gave the technological marvel their stamp of approval and started getting ready for the Air Greenland crew to put it through its paces for themselves.

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Delayed delivery
Air Greenland placed an order for a new A330-800 in late 2020 in order to upgrade from its aging fleet of A330-200 aircraft. It was only the fourth airline in the world to place an order for the aircraft, following in the footsteps of Uganda Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, and Kuwait Airways. The delivery of the airplane was anticipated to take place during the last three months of the year 2021. However, only a few months after the order was placed, it became clear that delivery would need to be delayed until 2022 due to delays that were experienced across the industry as a whole.

After the original delivery date for the airplane was delayed by an entire year, the aircraft is now finally ready to be added to Air Greenland’s fleet. Both the airline and the manufacturer had previously anticipated that this delay would last for an entire year. This was due to the fact that Airbus, along with other aircraft manufacturers, struggled to manage supply chain slowdowns during the pandemic. When air transit services were terminated at the beginning of the year 2020, aircraft manufacturing services were also terminated because many operations had to be temporarily halted due to concerns regarding health and safety.

After production had been restarted, it could only be done on a small scale due to health regulations and disruptions in the supply chain, both of which made it more difficult for the manufacturer to acquire the necessary components and materials. Airbus has continued to produce technologically advanced aircraft that are significantly more fuel efficient than their aging competitors despite these setbacks.

When the aircraft is finally handed over to Air Greenland, its registration will be changed to OY-GKN. The A330-800, which is currently the smallest A330 model that can be ordered, will take the place of the airline’s current A330-200, which is registered as OY-GRN. The small airline will be able to operate longer-distance flights with the help of the new aircraft. The airline anticipates that, as a result of the decreased operating costs of the aircraft, it will be able to improve its profit margins and generate a greater profit from the sale of each individual ticket.

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