staraustralia | Airbus A330neo family | 2021-present

At the 2019 Paris Air Show, along with a massive order for the A220 and the firming up of 50 options for the A320neo family to be distributed across its subsidiary airlines, staraustralia signed up for an order of up to 50 A330neo jets, in what was the largest single order in the company's history. The order consted of 14 firm orders, along with 26 options and 10 purchase rights. Among the new widebodies, 8 would be -800s and 6 aircraft would be the larger -900 variant.

This order was significant for the airline for a variety of reasons. It represented a large increase of its widebody operations, consisting of 23 A330-200s. Among the new jets, the A330-900neo would give the airline a significant capacity boost on medium and long-haul flights to popular vacation destinations in Asia and Oceania. However, the A330-800neo is perhaps the most interesting addition to the fleet. With its 15000km range, staraustralia has announced that it plans to use this medium-capacity jet to launch the world's first low-cost flights between Australia and the continental US, namely Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The first A330-800neo was due to be delivered in July 2021, with entry into service forecasted around mid-August. Flights to LAX were expected to begin in October, with SFO following in mid-2022. The A330-900neo was expected to join the fleet in late 2022 and be placed into the most popular flights in the Asian network. However, the pandemic and strict lockdown in Australia have forced the airline to push intiial deliveries of the A330neo. With three of its A330-800s in various stages of assembly the company could only defer deliveries until October 1st, however the first A330-900 isn't expected to join the fleet until mid-to-late-2023. The airline however is still planning the launch of flights to LA as early as November 2021, aiming to take advantage of the vunerable state of the industry caused by the pandemic to infiltrate the highly competitve market.