“Toronto tower, good day, for the last time, Air Transat 765 heavy cleared ILS 23”.
Video: (same as text below)
Air Transat, the last airline in North America to operate the Airbus A310, has officially retired its final aircraft.
The final Air Transat A310 flight was a repatriation flight on March 30, 2020, from Porto to Montréal via Halifax.
The final Air Transat A310 flight was operated by C-GSAT, which was delivered to the airline in August 2001.
Air Transat also retired its other A310 earlier today, registered as C-GPAT, delivered to the airline in May 2001. C-GPAT was ferried from Montreal-Pierre (YUL) to Montreal-Mirabel (YMX) to be retired.
Air Transat was originally supposed to retire the A310 at the end of April 2020. However, due to the airline’s decision to suspend all flights through April 2020, Air Transat accelerated the A310 retirement.
According to Planespotters, Air Transat had a total of 14 Airbus A310s in its fleet with the oldest being C-GFAT, an A310 delivered to the airline in December 2000.
Air Transat’s youngest A310 was C-GTSW, which was delivered to the airline in September 2008. These two A310s were already previously retired.
These Air Transat A310s are being replaced by a fleet of Airbus A321LRs
Unfortunately, there aren’t many passenger A310 operators left in the world. Aside from government or private A310s, only Ariana Afghan Airlines, Iran Air, and Mahan Air still operate the passenger A310.
Declining air travel demand has affected other aircraft retirements, such as KLM’s passenger 747 fleet, which was just retired two days ago on March 29.
Image Credits
Air Transat’s Airbus A310 final landing: https://twitter.com/TomPodolec/status/1244713838920044544
Mahan Air A310: https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/9411681
At this very moment, C-GSAT, the final Air Transat A310, is about to depart Toronto-Pierre (YYZ) to Toronto-Mirabel (YMX) for its final resting place.
Track it here: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/c-gsat#244d2852
This is truly the end of an era. Personally, I never got to fly the Airbus A310 and I was relying on Air Transat’s proximity to the U.S. to fly on the aircraft. Now, I don’t believe I’ll be able to as the next closest A310 is in Iran/Afghanistan.
Have any of you flown Air Transat’s A310 or the A310 in general?
