Titan Airways (ZT, London Stansted) took delivery of its first A330-300(P2F) on August 27, 2021, and began operating the Airbus converted freighter exclusively on behalf of French forwarder GEODIS in early September.
G-EODS (msn 713) is a 15.7-year-old aircraft last operated in passenger configuration by AirAsia X through March 2020. The aircraft was subsequently acquired by Stratos and leased to GEODIS. It underwent conversion at Dresden, pre-delivery handover works at Châteauroux Déols Marcel Dassault airport, and was delivered to London Stansted on August 27. Following test flights within the United Kingdom on September 2-4, it was deployed into revenue service on September 5, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows.
GEODIS said the aircraft would operate between Amsterdam Schiphol, Chicago O'Hare, London Stansted, and Hong Kong International for at least five years.
"Our AirDirect service has operated more than 650 air charter flights so far across Asia, Europe, North and Latin America in order to secure capacity for our customer shipments worldwide. The experience gained from these operations has led to the decision to charter our own GEODIS Freighter. This will provide our clients with a reliable schedule of flights, under our operational control, helping them overcome the significant logistical constraints that the market is currently enduring,” Executive Vice-President (Freight Forwarding) Eric Martin-Neuville said.
GEODIS has not had any aircraft operated exclusively on its behalf thus far.
For Titan Airways, the A330-300(P2F) is the first widebody aircraft since the retirement of the only B767-300ER in May 2020, the ch-aviation fleets history module shows. The British carrier operates two A320-200s, three A321-200s, one A321-200(P2F), two A321-200NX(LR), two B737-400(SF)s, and two B757-200s. Sister carrier Titan Airways Malta operates one A321-200 and one A321-200(P2F).
Editorial Comment: The conversion location has been corrected. - 26Sep2021 - 06:43 UTC