CS-TRA 1 Airbus A330-243 Orbest Airlines MAN 31MAY07

            Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 18-Dec-24.

First flown with the Airbus test registration F-WWKL, this aircraft was delivered to CIT Aerospace and leased to Iberworld as EC-IDB in Apr-02.  It was wet-leased to Garuda Indonesia Airlines in Dec-04 for a Haj Pilgrimage operation, returning to Iberworld in Feb-05.

In Dec-05 the aircraft was wet-leased to Etihad Airways to cover the late delivery of a Boeing 777-300ER.  It returned to Iberworld in Mar-06.  It was sold to Iberworld's Portuguese subsidiary Orbest Airlines as CS-TRA in May-07.

It was wet-leased to Novair Sweden in Nov-07 and returned to Orbest in Apr-08.  The winter wet-lease to Novair Sweden was repeated between Oct-08 / Apr-09 and again between Oct-09 / Apr-10.

The aircraft was sub-leased, long term, to Air Europa as EC-LKE in Dec-10.  It was returned to Orbest in Jul-12 with a recurring technical problem.  It was withdrawn from service and stored at Lisbon, Portugal.

Using Airbus flight numbers the aircraft was returned to Airbus at Toulouse in Sep-12 for some spannering and a few test flights before returning to Orbest at Madrid in late Oct-12.  Whatever the problem was, it was still there and the aircraft ferried back to Airbus at Toulouse three days later.

After some hangar time and multiple test flights with Airbus it returned to Orbest in Dec-12.  It must have been OK as it was wet-leased to Turkish Airlines in Jan-13.  It wasn't with Turkish for long as Orbest ceased operations on 14-Feb-13 and Turkish Airlines returned it direct to the CIT Aerospace.

It was parked at Istanbul and re-registered EC-LVL in Mar-13.  It was leased to Air Europa at the end of Apr-13.  The aircraft was withdrawn from service and stored at Palma, Mallorca, Spain in Mar-20 at the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

It was ferried to Hondo, TX, USA in early Nov-20 and returned to the lessor as OE-IRD.  Four years on it's now 22.5 years old and still stored at Hondo and is quite possibly permanently retired.  Updated 18-Dec-24.

Taken on: May 31, 2007

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