As it stands right now, looks like PIT will see the return of scheduled A330 service!
Condor loaded their 2020 PIT schedules. Still 2x weekly M & F with a slight departure time change on one of the days. But upgauged to a Thomas Cook A330!
Some major pluses and minuses with this:
- The big advantage is the huge increase in capacity which will help the airport's int'l numbers recover. Another is more cargo capacity.
- The big disadvantages are the loss of business class and 3x3x3 seating. The last 6 rows of the A330 does have 2x3x2 seating common to the 767 however.
I can't determine if this will be an A332 or A333?
Condor's fleet website lists "
Condor operates the Boeing 767-300ER, Boeing 757-300, Airbus A320-200, Airbus A321-200, Airbus A330-200 and A330-300 aircraft types." However A330 seating charts are not available.
Over on Thomas Cook's website the A332 seating charts are very different from those on Condor's booking engine when making a dummy booking for a PIT-FRA flight. It also states economy seating for the A332s are 273, 265, or 261 depending on specific aircraft, with 49 in premium. However counting the seats from the PIT bookings there are a whopping 323 in economy with only 12 premium economy. The Thomas Cook website does state "
*During summer we will be operating an A330-300 which will have 372 economy seats." But that doesn't match either so who knows.
https://www.thomascookairlines.com/en/fly-with-us/our-airlines-partners/our-fleet/airbus-a330-200.jspBut I can't imagine the Pittsburgh business community would be happy about this. I'd much prefer 3x weekly 767 flights.
Here's Thomas Cooks "premium" offering:
https://www.thomascookairlines.com/en/fly-with-us/classes-rates/premium-class.jsp This is of course subject to change. I remember Condor was still tweaking things with their 2019 schedule in the Fall of 2018. Then of course there is the matter of a potential LH takeover of DE.