Hello everyone.
This is my first ever features topic and I would like to nominate Skymark’s Airbus A330-300 which operated for the airline for less than a year during 2014. Despite being short lived, it left a legacy of being extremely luxurious and generous for a low-cost carrier airline.
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Background
Skymark ordered seven A330-300 in 2012 and it was the first airline in Japan to introduce this aircraft. It was configured with 271 economy class seats in a 2-3-2 configuration with bright green color seats with a wide 38-inch pitch. The configuration was ridiculously sparse for a wide body aircraft, but this was praised by many passengers due to the extremely spacious seats. These seats were equivalent to premium class in ANA or JAL.
The first aircraft, JA330A was delivered to the airline on March 1, 2014 and arrived at its base at Haneda on the next day.
After months of test flights and training, it flew its first commercial flight carrying passengers 3 months later on June 14 from Haneda to Fukuoka. Unfortunately, this dream was extremely short lived and Skymark filed for bankruptcy due to their A380 order, which ended in a total disaster.
As a result, the airline had to retire all five of their A330 and some of their 737-800 in late 2014. The remaining A330, which were awaiting delivery were now stored at Toulouse and these were never delivered to the airline and were acquired by other airlines such as Turkish Airways or Air Europa. (There are even pictures of the aircraft operating in a hybrid livery which I myself find it sort of embarrassing as it reflects the airline’s disaster during that time.)
After a few years of negotiations, Skymark was able to exit from bankruptcy in 2016 with the help from ANA and as of today, the airline operates only Boeing 737-800 aircraft with the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft set to join the fleet next year.
What’s more, their failed A380 order was the main reason why ANA now operates 3 of them named Lani, Kai, and La and the airline even admitted that these aircraft were not part of their overall fleet plan at that time. If successful, Skymark would have been the first Japanese operator of the A380. Unfortunately, this feature request has recently been closed as it never operated for the airline.
(This information was written from memory so some information may be incorrect.)
Pictures of the cabin
Taken from the back of the aircraft.
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Reclined at maximum. Despite the seat behind being vacant, you can still see how much space there is if a person was seated behind.
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The green colored economy seats with a footrest. According to someone, these seats were also found on Cathay Pacific and ANA in Premium economy class.
Mind you, this airline is an LCC airline and advertised them as economy seats! Talk about generosity and feeling luxurious for a low price!
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Their former A330-300 fleet
・JA330A | Feb 2014 ～ Jan 2015 | In service with Turkish Airways as TC-LOA.
・JA330B | Feb 2014 ～ Jan 2015 | In service with Turkish Airways as TC-LOB.
・JA330D | Jul 2014 ～ Jan 2015 | In service with Turkish Airways as TC-LOC.
・JA330E | Sep 2014 ～ Jan 2015 | In service with Turkish Airways as TC-LOD.
Fun fact: This registration (TC-LOD) is the Turkish Airways A330-300 depicted in Infinite Flight! So basically, there is unofficially a Skymark A330 in the game.
・JA330F | Nov 2014 ～ Jan 2015 | Now with Avolon as N302PF to be converted into a freighter.
・JA330G | (never delivered) | In service with Turkish Airways as TC-LOE.
・JA330K | (never delivered) | In service with flynas as HZ-NE24.
・JA330L | (never delivered) | In service with flynas as HZ-NE25. (Currently stored)
・JA330M | (never delivered) | In service with Turkish Airways as TC-LOF.
・JA330N | (never delivered) | In service with Turkish Airways as TC-LOG.
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Although the Skymark A330 is no longer flying, it would be great if we can get another wide body aircraft that once operated for a Japanese airline in my opinion.
However, if you like, consider voting for their B737-800 as well because it would really be great if we can get another Japanese airline for Infinite Flight apart from ANA, JAL, Peach and FDA. What’s more, Kobe Airport (RJBE) is now a 3D airport and this airport is also Skymark’s major base apart from Haneda so it would become beneficial to fly these in.
Thank you for reading!