Re: LN-TUA: Er maskinen på vei ut av SAS flåten?
I did a quick search in my old files.
As of 30th November 2001, BU announced that they would reduce the fleet from 33 to 23 planes. This was short after Meum became CEO.
At this time, only 6 planes (-TUB,-TUC,-TUE,-TUG,-TUH,-TUI). They were owned by BU from day 1 when they were delivered from Boeing. In an effort to release cash, these planes were sold to BBAM and no longer used after the sale.
BRF and BRU were returned in early 2002 to the owner, BRN followed later that year and was stored at SVG, whilst BRF found a new home in France and BRU went into Storage.
As the situation in 2002 developed much better than anticipated, the planned return of 3 more planes, among them BUC, was dropped and the leasings of these planes were extended. BRP left the fleet as planned in 2003.
Thanks to the improved economics, TUH and TUI returned to BU on new leases as they were not placed, whilst both TUB and TUC went into service with Ford and later joined Southwest. TUE and TUG had a short stop down under before joining Hainan Airlines. Both are now flying for the Hainan subsidary Lucky Air.
TUA, TUD and TUF were owned from day 1 by ILFC and have the medium MTOW and the higher 24K trust rating.
Of the 2 "returners", only TUI was upgraded in MTOW and uprated, whilst TUH stayed at its low MTOW and thrust setting.