MEA Lebanon announces a big Airbus order

Lebanon’s MEA officially announces a new order for its full fleet replacement:

a) 5 A332s to be replaced by 4 new A330-900neos

b) 13 A320s to be replaced by 11 new A321Neos

Comments:

This is a smart move by MEA as it is sticking to its core focus of operating short and medium haul routes up to a maximum of 6 hours from its Beirut hub. Due to this, the airline does not need to waste  money by ordering the more expensive A350-900 which would have been the logical thing to do if it was any other airline.

Another interesting point to note is that it’s current fleet of 18 aircraft (5 A332s + 13 A320s) is being reduced to 16 (4 A339s + 11 A321neos) which in turn means it will be better optimizing it’s network to focus on routes where there is higher yielding p2p demand bound to Lebanon versus targeting lower yielding transit traffic from EU to GCC. 

In addition one is to expect few A332 routes to be downgraded to A321neos as the wide body fleet size reduces from 5 to 4. Lebanon isn’t a big cargo market so the loss of one wide body aircraft isn’t a big deal but what is commendable to note is the fact that they are not going to be operating the A320s in the future since they realize the economics of the A321neos is far superior + with many of their prime destinations ie DXB JED RUH LHR CDG CAI IST facing slot issues it is is best to maximize seats available per slot ratio to gain maximum uplift.